What Is so Bad About Valentines Day?

Well, today, February 14th, millions of people around the world will be exchanging tokens of messages of love and affection. You've probably seen it if you looked around and maybe in stores and the gift shops and all of a sudden the merchandising changes a little bit. Valentine's Day. Today. Where and how did some of these curious customs come from? That we call Valentine's Day. Where did they begin? And probably very importantly, is does God have anything to say about such practices? Again, every year on this day, millions of people express their romantic desire by doing various things. By exchanging heart-shaped boxes of chocolate or flowers or valentines, also known as Valentine cards, and children will reveal secret infatuations by sending a card to a secret admirer, in a sense. Maybe some of you remember those days in elementary school where there'd be the valentine box and you would write a valentine maybe to somebody or maybe to everyone in the class, but secretly hoping you'd get one from maybe that person, a special person that was in your mind. So all of these things, you know, we see the retailers' shelves are stocked with various things, merchandise, and we see cupids on some of the cards or on some of the advertisements, and we see all of these things that are now common on Valentine's Day. And yet, this is nothing new. This type of thing has actually been going on for a very, very long time. The custom of sending valentines in this country in the United States became very popular back in the 1700s, and then in the 1800s, the early 1800s, commercial valentines appeared where there would be something that was written for you by somebody else that you could buy. You couldn't think of the right words yourself. Those types of things were out there. And of course, the, oh, the business owners found a way, you know, to basically capitalize very much on this day to try to make profits in various ways. Valentine's Day eventually became so popular in this country in the United States that one periodical that goes back to 1863 proclaimed it to be second in celebration only to Christmas, second only to Christmas. And today, it's still very popular with children, with couples, and it's definitely one of the biggest money-making days of the year for florists and candy makers and gift shops. But what's all the fuss? What's really so bad about Valentine's Day? That's the title of the message today. What's really so bad about Valentine's Day? I mean, it's about love. It's about caring for other people. And, you know, on the surface, it really seems pretty harmless.

Or is it? Just where do these curious customs of this day come from? What's the origin of the day itself? And what should the Christian perspective be? What's God's perspective? What's Jesus Christ's perspective? And what then should be our perspective of this holiday? What should it be, according to the Bible? What should it be according to Scripture? Well, specifically, what I'd like to do today is to go with you, to share with you, to go through the avenue of history, to go back in time, if you will, to review the origins of Valentine's Day in history. And then, to see from Scripture what perspective we should have, what perspective God has in our elder brother, Jesus Christ, and what we should have. Well, let's begin first by turning over to Jeremiah 10 and verse 1. You know, there are many that know the truth about those world's holiday origins, including this one, of Valentine's Day. They know that love is involved, and they think what difference does it make? And I think that's a good question to ask. Does it make a difference? So let's go back to Jeremiah 10. So we can look at what our Creator says, and he'll share some things with us, his thoughts, on some of these things from Scripture. So Jeremiah 10, and we'll pick it up here in verse 1. Jeremiah 10 and verse 1. It says, So we know that the word gentiles, it means the pagans, the heathen, the gentiles, those people that did not necessarily worship the one and only true God, but they had their own ways of worship, they had their own deities that they worshiped, and God says, don't learn their way. Don't learn the way of the gentiles. Now, I'd like to focus on that word way just for a moment, the Hebrew word way. What does that mean? Well, it's the Hebrew word dairak. Dairak. And what it means is, it is a manor, a habit. Don't learn the manner or the habits of the gentiles. It can also be translated the course of life. Don't learn their course of life, their habit, their manner, and it can also be translated moral character. Don't learn the way that they have. And we go on to verse number three. For the customs of these peoples are futile. And I'm reading from the New King James here, and that can be translated vain. It can also be translated as it is in other, the New International version says, the customs of the people are worthless. They absolutely have no value whatsoever.

They're worthless. They're vain. I think the NRSV translated says, the customs of the people are false. They're not the truth. And of course, the truth is very, very important to God. And of course, He wants us to worship Him in spirit and in truth. The customs of the people are false. The NAS version says, for the customs of the peoples are delusion. So they start to confuse. They start to mix things. And it's a smoke and mirror type of thing. It's not the truth. It may appear good, but it's not the truth. They're delusion. So, brethren, God tells you and I right out of the chute, as He told His people at that time, don't learn the habits. Don't learn the ways. Don't learn the course of life of the Gentiles. But I want you to learn about the way of God. You are a son and a daughter of God. I want you to learn that way. And there is a way of God. Let's look over at Acts chapter 18 in verse 12. It talks about the way. Acts chapter 18, we'll pick it up in verse number 25.

It's talking about a certain Jew in verse 24 by the name of Apollos. And Apollos was an eloquent man. It says in verse number 23 of Acts 23, he was an eloquent man. Verse 24, rather, of Acts chapter 18. And he was mighty in the scriptures, and he came to Ephesus and it says, verse 25 of Acts 18, that this man had been instructed in the way of the Lord. Now, when we look at that Greek word way, it means very similar to what the Hebrew word way meant. It could be translated a course of conduct. In other words, a way of living. It could be translated a way of thinking, of feeling and deciding. And so God has a way of thinking and a feeling and of deciding, of making choices, knowing the end from the beginning. He knows when he comes to a crossroad which way that he should go, because he knows whether it will lead to good or whether it leads to error. And so it says in verse 26, he'd been instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and he taught accurately of the things of the Lord, although he only knew the baptism of John. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, verse 26, and when Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. So, Apollo's had a lot going, but he still needed to be tweaked a little bit when it came to the way of God. But there is a way of the Gentiles and there is a way of God. There's also a way of man. I'll just refer for time to Proverbs 14 and verse 12. It says there is a way of man that seems right to him. But it says in the end, it results in death. There is a way that seems right to a man. And so God wants us, he doesn't want us to end in death. He has a hope and a future for us. And so he says there's basically three ways. There's the way of the Gentiles, which probably ties in pretty closely with the way of man. And then there's the way of God. God wants us to choose His way. Let's go over to Exodus 32 and verse 1. Exodus 32.

The context here is that Moses has gone up to the mountain for a while to receive the law from God. And then the children of Israel begin to get nervous. You're going to wonder what happened to Moses. Begin to think what happened to God. And so they turned to Aaron. And if you remember, they pressured him to make a God for us. And so that's exactly what happened, is that Aaron basically acceded to that request. And he told them to take off the gold earrings and all the different gold that they had. And that they actually made a molded calf. Remember that story? Well, let's pick it up here in verse 4 of Exodus 32. And it says, referring to Aaron, Aaron received the gold from their hand. He fashioned it with an engraving tool. And he made a molded calf. And then they said, This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. Of course, this is an idol here, breaking the first commandment. Verse 5, When Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it, before the calf. In other words, it wasn't for God, it was for this calf. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord, or is a feast to Jehovah. Well, God never told him that tomorrow was a feast.

God never told them to make a golden calf. Even though they named the golden calf Jehovah, he called it the God. It wasn't God. That's not how God viewed it, even though they called the calf Jehovah. They called him the Eternal. They called the calf the Lord, and they were going to have a feast to this calf. Well, how does God respond here? Verse number 6, And they rose up early in the next day, offered burnt offerings, brought peace offerings, all a way of worshiping. And the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play. And the Lord said to Moses, Get down for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They turned aside quickly out of the way. Talk about a way of life. They went to the way of the Gentiles again, didn't they? They went to their own way. God says they turned quickly out of the side of the way which I have commanded them. They made themselves a golden, a molded calf, and they worshipped it. God didn't think of them as worshiping Him. He thought of it as they were worshiping it, the calf. And they've sacrificed to it, and this is your God saying, This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. You know, notice verse number 7, the last part of verse number 7, it says that they corrupted themselves. You know, I touched on this a couple of years ago with the message about the corruption of false worship that I gave as a Bible study here. But when we begin to decide for ourselves the way we're going to worship God or the way we're going to travel, the way we're going to walk, it changes us.

There's something that starts to happen in us, a process of corruption in us. And so, very important, since God knows the end from the beginning, He knows if we do things in the way that we want to, not the way that He says that that can result in great, great difficulties.

Brother, that's amazing, really, in a way, the information that's out there regarding the origins of Valentine's Day. And it can be found easily if you know if you go to online encyclopedias or other online media sources, that you simply Google the origins of Valentine's Day or go to the library and check out a few books on that particular topic. And many of Valentine's Day customs can be traced back to pre-Christian origins, to pagan origins, you know, with the Roman and Greek deities of Cupid and Eros and other false gods. And we find when we research this topic that the origins of Valentine's Day are deeply rooted in religious, false religion. And we'll take a look at some of those origins here in a moment. Where did all this begin? Where did this Valentine's Day begin? Where did it originate? Well, let's review a little bit of history here. I'm going to go through a lot of historical information here, probably too fast for you to be able to take good notes. But I'll go through a few things here to try to give you a flavor here, several different sources, because any good encyclopedia reference material will state where Valentine's Day originated. The American Book of Days, okay, it's a quote from the American Book of Days by Jan Hatch, reads this, and I quote, Association of Valentine's Day with lovers is a survival and Christianized form of a practice that occurred on February 14, the day before the ancient feast of Lupercalia. Lupercalia. You know, if there's nothing else that I hope that you will learn in the message today is that Valentine's Day comes from, really, it originates from a Roman feast by the name of Lupercalia. I'll spell that for you. Lupercalia. L-U-P-E-R-C-A-L-I-A. L-U-P-E-R-C-A-L-I-A. Here's another quote from Holidays and Anniversaries of the World by Lawrence Verdang and Christy Donahue on the article Valentine's Day. And I quote, it says this, Valentine's Day is also believed to be a continuation of the Roman festival of Lupercalia. The new standard encyclopedia under the article Valentine states, Saint Valentine was an obscure, possibly legendary martyr, who by tradition was put to death by the Romans on April 14th, about A.D. 269. This day was made a feast by Pope Gelasius, the first of the Roman Catholic Church. The date of his death almost coincided with that of the Roman feast of Lupercalia. The celebration of the two occasions were merged. That's from the new standard encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia of Americana 1996 says this about Lupercalia. It says it's an ancient Roman rite held each February 15th for the fertility god, Lupercus. So Lupercalia is named after the Roman god Lupercus. Lupercus was a god, he was a hunter, and also a god of fertility. So he was a Roman deity known as a hunter and also god of fertility. The American Heritage Dictionary says this under Lupercalia. It reads this, a fertility festival in ancient Rome celebrated February 15th in honor of the pastoral god Lupercus. Even the month of February gets its name from this pagan ceremony. The Latin februae means to purify after this so-called feast of purification. So it's amazing how all of this started so long ago. We go back to the third and fourth centuries, and yet even the month that we have today, February, is named after a Roman god. So these things just kind of hang around.

They don't go away. They don't go away. So in talking about where did all this stuff begin, where did it all originated, it goes back hundreds of years before Jesus Christ was even born, before Christianity in a sense even came on the scene. Valentine's Day acquired its name from a Catholic saint, although exactly who he was is a matter of debate because there's not a lot of information that's available. The two most famous candidates were a priest in Rome and also a bishop in central Italy, both who suffered death, apparently, according to the legend, in the last half of the third century. So the late 200s, in other words. Now this is a quote from Robert Myers who wrote a book, the complete book of American holidays. In the chapter called Celebrations, this is what he has to say about Valentine's Day. He says, everyone knows that Saint Valentine's Day is that day of the year when friends and lovers express for one another, express love for one another in affection through cards, candy, flowers, and whatever means the imagination can find.

No one is quite certain who Saint Valentine was or, more appropriately, who these Valentines were because the early lists of church martyrs reveal at least three Valentines and even one source boasted or boosted this number to as many as eight Valentines. So it's fairly common. Well, I don't know how common it is, but there were several, more than one, each of whom had his feast day on February 14th. Quoting again, Mr. Robert Myers, he says, and I quote, the various Valentines eventually evolved into one, just one. Lovers' quarrels came under his jurisdiction, and naturally he's the patron saint of engaged couples and anyone wishing to marry. So this is all within probably the Catholic Church. Now, I'd like to quote from another source here. This is a book by Charles Panatti entitled, Panatti's Extraordinary Origins of Ordinary Things. Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things. And I quote, the Catholic Church's attempt to paper over, or to whitewash, I guess, if you want to put it that way, to paper over a popular pagan fertility rite with the clubbing death and decapitation, or beheading, of one of its own martyrs is the origin of the lover's holiday. As early as the fourth century BC, so this would be hundreds of years, of course, before Christianity, the Romans engaged in an annual young man's rite of passage to the god, Lupercus. The names of teenage women were placed in a box and drawn at random by adolescent men. Thus, a man was assigned a woman companion for their mutual entertainment and pleasure for the duration of a year, after which you did the process all over again. You had another lottery all over again. Sounds kind of familiar, a little bit, kind of a connection there between the Valentine's box that people would put their names in. It says, even the Roman Catholic Church recognized, and this is my comment, I'm not quoting now, even the Roman Catholic Church recognized the detrimental influence of the pagan roots of Lupercalia. They even realized that this is not right. It's just how they handle it, I suppose, is what could be subject to question. And determined to put an end to what had been hundreds of years of this Roman festival of Lupercalia, the early church fathers of the Roman Catholic Church sought some type of replacement. They sought a lover's saint, in a sense, to be able to fill the gap here. And so they were determined to put an end to this practice and find something to replace the false god of Lupercalia in this Roman festival of Lupercalia. So they had a motivation. What was their motivation to rename Lupercalia? And I'll ask another question. How successful do you think it was on a scale of one to ten? How successful do you think the strategy was? Well, let's continue through the annals of history here. In renaming the feast of Lupercalia, the Roman Catholic Church in 490 AD, so this is a long time ago, 490 AD found a likely candidate in Valentine, Saint Valentine, who was a bishop who had been martyred, as we talked about, some 200 years earlier, probably goes back to about 270 AD.

Valentine, at that time, according to the legend, had angered the Roman emperor, Claudius II, and Claudius had issued a edict forbidding marriage. Why would he do that? Well, because apparently when soldiers were married, they didn't like to fight very well in battle, and so the empire needed soldiers. And so Claudius, who apparently was willing to take a risk, never one to fear unpopularity, he abolished marriage. Well, according to the legend, Valentine, who was a bishop, invited young lovers to come in secret, or he joined them in marriage. When Claudius found out about this, he was upset, and he brought the bishop Valentine to his castle, to his palace, and according to legend, the emperor was actually impressed with Valentine, with his character, with his disposition, and he tried to convert him to the Roman gods because he didn't want to put him to death. Well, according to legend, Valentine refused to renounce Christianity, and in turn, he tried to convince the emperor to be a Christian. Well, that didn't work. And on February 24th, 270 AD, according to legend, Valentine was killed. He was clubbed. He was stoned, and then after his death, he was beheaded. And history claims also that while Valentine was in prison, awaiting his execution, he fell in love with the blind daughter of the jailer of the prison.

With one of his last farewell messages, he signed a message to her from your Valentine, in a phrase that would seem to live a long time afterwards, long after the author died.

Well, from the Roman Catholic Church's standpoint, Valentine seemed to be an ideal candidate to replace this popular Lupercus. So in AD 496, Pope Gelatius outlawed the mid-February Roman feast. So we're not going to do this anymore. You know, at that time, Constantine had probably been on the scene, and Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire.

So he outlawed this mid-February Roman feast of Lupercullia. But what Pope Gelatius did do is he retained the lottery, this box. You know, he was aware of the Romans' love for games, a chance. And so in that box, what had once held the names of available and single women, what was placed inside instead, were the names of saints. Both men and women extracted slips of paper, and the ensuing year they were expected to emulate the life of the saint whose name that they had drawn out of the box.

So you see, there's kind of a change here. There's a change with different, there's a different game with different incentives. And to expect a woman and then draw the name of a saint, probably disappointed a few of the Roman men, okay, to pull out the name of a saint. And of course, the one that was overseeing this entire thing, the spiritual overseer, was Saint Valentine, who they believed was still alive. You could pray to him. You know, the immortality of the soul had started to get off base in the sense that people, instead of people being dead without having any knowledge in the grave at all, which is what the Scriptures purely show us, well, they believed that the saints were alive.

And you could pray to them, and you could talk to them. And so Saint Valentine is overseeing this entire thing. However, as we shall see, and as we continue to walk through the path of history, that the pagan influences did not go away. On the contrary, the burning embers that still remained began to be inflamed in time later on. Valentine cards, let's talk about that for a moment.

Traditionally, mid-February was a Roman time to meet and court prospective mates. That was just part of their culture. And the Lapercian lottery, of course, was banned by the pope. Mortal sin! You couldn't do that anymore. So there was an end around that was done. Okay, what happened was that the Roman young man did institute the custom of offering women that they admired and wished to date or court, as we would say.

They would send them handwritten greetings of affection on February the 14th. And the cards acquired the name Valentine. They acquired that name. And as Christianity began to spread at that time, so did the Valentine's card. You know how old the earliest known existing Valentine card is? It's in the British Museum. It goes back to the year 1415. Well, right now we're in the year 1915.

Almost to the day, I suppose, that this card was written 500 years ago. That's a long time. Now, they go back before then, but that's the oldest known Valentine card. It goes back to the year of 1415. It was a card that was written by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. And again, that card still exists in the British Museum. But as time went on, the pagan influences began to rise and began to change and began to affect Valentine's Day.

Let's go over to Deuteronomy 12, verse 29. As we fast forward now to the 16th century, this would be the 1500s, Saint Francis de Saul's, Bishop of Geneva, he attempted to stop the custom of the cards. Okay? So he began to see this is getting out of control. This isn't, in a sense, a very good fruit that's happening. He attempted to stop the custom of the cards and to reinstate the lottery of the names of the saints.

So he wanted to stop this card thing. It was getting way out of control. And he wanted to reinstate this box with the lottery where you put the saints' names in, you draw out a saint's name, and then you try to emulate that saint's life for the next year.

He felt that Christians had become wayward. They were getting off track. And they needed models to emulate. But you know what? This trying to reinstitute this lottery of saints' names was even less successful than it was for Pope Gelatius when he tried. It lasted a very short period of time. It was less successful and shorter-lived.

My comment here, brethren, again, the motivation to Christianize a pagan holiday wasn't bearing fruit. We see how they took this festival. They tried to put a Christian name on it. They removed Lupercus' name and they applied Valentine's name. You know, the fruit of it, you know, we talk about syncretism. We've talked about that over the years. The amalgamation of truth and error. It doesn't bear any fruit. Well, it bears fruit, but it's not the fruit that God would have it to bear. Let's look at Deuteronomy chapter 29. It's interesting that even historians seem to notice how this works, too. But let's take a look. Deuteronomy chapter, I said chapter 29, is chapter 12 and verse 29. Deuteronomy chapter 12 and verse 29. Because God knows the end from the beginning. There's a reason why He says His way is very important that we follow and don't learn the way of the Gentiles. It says, "...when the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, then take heed." God says, I'm going to remove these people out of the place where you're going. And I'm going to give this to you. But when you go there, be careful. Take heed, He says, to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you, and that you don't inquire after their God saying, how did these nations serve their gods? God says, beware. He says, watch out for a trap. You know, it's a blessing that God tells us things beforehand. He's warning them, and of course, He warns us through the Scripture here, because if you go and start to inquire after their gods, and how did these nations serve their gods, and I'm going to do it the same way that they did. God knows the end from the beginning. He knows that that's going to start the process of corruption. Verse 31, you shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. We talked about how important the way is. For every abomination to the Lord, which He hates, they've done to their gods. They've even gone so far as to burn their sons and daughters in fire to their gods. At verse 32, whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. Don't add to it, and don't take away from it. God knows our human tendencies, and we think we can approve on it. We can add to it. Or there's something about it we don't like, so we'll take that away. But that begins the process of change in us, and it's not the type of change we really want. Even certain historical references understand this syncretism, this unnatural mix of truth and error. I'm going to quote here from the Chambers Book of Days, volume number 2. Chambers Book of Days. He says this, and I quote, The church endeavored to amalgamate, in other words, to mix, to amalgamate, as it were, the old religion and the new religion. And they sought by transferring the heathen ceremonies to the solemnities, or the observances, in other words, of the Christian festivals, to make them subservient, or subordinate, in other words, to the cause of religion and piety. Some fancy words here, but he goes on to say, the result has been a strange medley, or mingling, in other words. The result has been a strange medley of Christian and pagan rights. In other words, religious practices. So they can even see it. They can see how it works, this mixture, this syncretism, and God knows of its dangers. So we see then, in the 16th century, even Francis de Sales saw that it was being a wayward direction. This is getting out of control. We need to return back to putting the saints' names in the box and get away from these Valentine cards. But rather than these Valentine cards disappearing, they proliferated.

It went even greater, and they became more decorative. In Cupid, the naked carob, the god, one of the gods of the Romans, armed with arrows dipped in the love potion, became a very popular Valentine image or icon. And we still see it today. It survived hundreds and hundreds and even thousands of years to our present time. He was associated with the holiday because in Roman mythology, he's the son of Venus, and Venus is the goddess of love and beauty. And so we even see today Cupid intermingled, amalgamated into what we have in Valentine's day to day. Fast-forwarding from the 16th century now to the 17th century, homemade cards were oversized, elaborate. Store-bought ones were there. In fact, in the United States, the first American publisher of Valentine's was a printer and artist by the name of Esther Howland. And her elaborate lace Valentine cards back in the 1870s, they cost from five to ten dollars, which was significant back in the 1870s. In fact, some of them are selling for as much as thirty-five dollars. That's a lot of money at that time. Since that time, you probably notice too when you go to the grocery store or you go to Walmart, you see this rack of cards for Valentine's Day and the card business has flourished. And with the exception of Christmas, Americans exchange more Valentine cards than any other holiday. Again, a lot of the information I'm sharing with you is coming from this Charles Panty, the Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things. So we see we have a pre-Christian origin here of Valentine's Day. And again, I'm going to quote Robert Myers in his book, the Complete Book of American Holidays. He says this, The most plausible theory for St. Valentine's Day traces its customs back to the Roman Lupercalia, a feast celebrated in February in honor of the god, Lupercus, a Roman version of the Greek god, Han. So it's over and over. You go to all of these different sources. It keeps coming back to Lupercalia. It keeps coming back to Lupercus. The Lupercalia festival was celebrated in honor of a number of deities. It combined the idea of cleansing before spring and renewal with the promotion of sexual fertility and reproduction, which was a prevalent theme in pagan religion. Now, sex just seemed to be something that was very, very prevalent in pagan religions. Young men dressed, this is amazing, young men dressed in skins of sacrificed goats. They would run from the Lupercal cave, brandishing strips of goatskins like whips, and any women slapped by these whips were assured fertility, and also in ease of childbirth when they had children.

It's amazing, isn't it? It's amazing. These thongs or these hide strips were called februa. From februum, meaning cleansing or purification, the festival, Februaryio, hence arose the name of the month February. It still has ties back to pre-Christian days. In fact, in the Roman times, February was the last month of the year. March was the first month of the year in their calendar, and February was the last month of the Roman year. So, what happened after the 17th century? Well, many customs were added to the celebration, including the origin of drawing out a Valentine card out of the box. So, eventually, in time, we start to go back to the pagan origins. Now, instead of drawing a name of a saint out of this box, now we're actually back to where it started, you know, in the time of the Roman festival lubrication, where we're drawing out a person's name. Not a saint, but usually it's a girl's name, or it can be a boy's too. But we're back to the drawing out of Valentine's out of a box. Again, Robert Myers in his book, The Complete Book of American Holidays, states, and I quote, In honor of the goddess Juno, the names of young women were put into a box. Youth then drew the names, and the boys and girls so matched would be considered partners for a year. So, this is another source that talks about some of the same things.

All right, what about Lupercalia and Christianity? What about these two here?

As Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, it was common for pagan converts to retain some of their earlier religious feelings about things, some of their practices, some of their customs. They didn't necessarily want to give it up. Edward Gibbon, in his classic work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, states this, and I quote, After the conversion of the imperial city, talking about Rome, the Christians still continued in the month of February the annual celebration of Lupercalia, to which they ascribed a secret and mysterious influence of genial powers, genial meaning generative or reproductive. They ascribed a secret and mysterious influence of genial powers of the animal and vegetable world.

Now, Pope Galatius is said to have eradicated Lupercalia from Christian observance. We touched on that already. But in reality, the intermingling of paganism and Christianity had become inseparable. Man, once it starts, once it gets root, once there's the intermingling, it's almost impossible to separate it. And I guess we can begin to understand the wisdom of God when He says, whatever I tell you, the way, don't learn the way of the Gentiles, but the way that I teach you, don't be soon removed from that way, because He knows the end from the beginning. He knows where it leads. Going on here, Saturnalia and Mithurism were incorporated into the church through claiming a December birth date for Jesus Christ. Various spring fertility rites emerged to form the basis of Easter celebrations, and Lupercalia evolved, evolved into the observance of St. Valentine's Day. Robert Meyer's comments again, and I quote, everywhere that Christians came into power, they immediately adapted the holidays and the customs of the people to their own creed. Now, it was a simple matter to call the day that this drawing of, you know, we talk about out of the box, that this drawing mentioned, now they call it Valentine's Day instead of Lupercalia. Again, I quote, to Christianize the heathen practice of picking lots for sweethearts, all that was needed was to replace the names of the girls with names of saints, and to have the young people emulate the particular virtues of whatever saint they drew, but then, given enough time, it reverted back to what it was before. Let's talk about Roman gods from a little bit here in Christian saints, because I think we're going to see that there's an intermingling there, too, where they begin to look at the saint almost as a god. How could a day honoring pagan gods become associated with Christian saints? How does that happen? A day that honors pagan gods become associated with Christian saints. What's the fruit of this intermingling, of this syncretism? How did it happen that a day honoring pagan gods could become associated with Christian saints? I think that's quite a story. How do you get from point A to point B? Well, the ancient Romans worshiped gods and goddesses. And in fact, it was involved with every aspect of their life. There were hundreds of gods. The ancient Romans worshiped Jupiter, who was the chief of all the other gods. He was the god of rain and storms, and then there was his wife, who was Juno, who was the goddess of all womanhood. Minerva was the goddess of handicrafts and wisdom. Venus was the goddess of sexual love and birth. Vesta, the goddess of hearth and sacred fires. And there was Cirrus of farming and harvests. The Greeks considered Mercury, whom they also called Hermes, to be the messenger of the gods. But the Romans worshiped him as a god of trade, with business people celebrating his feast day to help increase their profits. So they had to look for take on Mercury. And then there were other popular deities. There was Mars, who was the god of war. Castor and Pollux, gods of sea travelers. Cronos, the guardian of time. And of course, Cupid, the god of love. His magic arrows, you know, once they hit you, you were going to fall in love. And of course, that list of different gods and deities goes on and on.

Now, while the Romans would call generically on the gods, each major deities often had a place in their life. There was someone that they would specifically look to. You know, they would talk about the gods, but often they would pray and conduct religious ceremonies to a specific god or goddess, and they would look to them for help when they had time of need. And Christianity, of course, was a very different emphasis. You know, we talk about thousands of gods or hundreds of thousands of gods. Christianity emphasized one god, which was viewed by many Romans as a strange thing, as a strange superstition, or even a kind of atheism that denied some of the gods that they felt existed. So you see, you've got all this happening here in all of the syncretism and all these dynamics working here at the time when Christianity began to come into the Roman Empire.

Well, sadly, a large part of Christianity in the Roman Empire became corrupted over time and attempted to retain new converts by fashioning Christianity to be very close to what they were used to. And often, they would begin to bring in devotion to all the various gods, which at length was going to be replaced by a devotion instead of to a god, it was a devotion to a saint. So there was a transformation that was going on here that happened over hundreds of years.

Now we know and understand, and I'll just refer to Philippians 1, verse 1, that the Scriptures talk about that people that are in the household of God, that are in the church of God, are saints.

You know, whether alive or dead, God refers to His people as saints. But it wasn't long before saints, in a sense, in the Roman tradition, began to take on a whole different meaning than just somebody who made up the household of God or was part of the church of God. It began to take on a whole different meaning of a special class of people, a special class of martyrs, or a performer of a heroic thing that someone could look up to. In the second and third centuries, it became common for local congregations to honor the death of a martyr by celebrating the anniversary of his or her death. So you can see how the corruption begins to go further and further along when we don't follow what God teaches. The congregations, by this time, having accepted the pagan Greek falsehood of the immortality of the soul, and having lost the biblical understanding that the dead know nothing. That's Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verses 5 through 10. There's no knowledge, there's no wisdom in the grave where we go, but they'd forgotten that. They'd gotten away from that. And they would offer prayers to a dead saint, or I guess that saint was alive in heaven, and asking for help and intercession with God. So the meaning of saint changed over time. It changed dramatically from what the truth was to a false understanding of what a saint was. It changed from the biblical use of the word to refer to any member of the church to referring to a deceased person to be a saint by the bishop of Rome. He's the one that would proclaim someone to be a saint based on the miracles that they performed or the way that they lived their lives. So the evolution from the early church's recognition of all members being saints to the acknowledgment or the veneration or the worship of the dead is one of the many fruits of this syncretism. It's just another one of the side notes that happen when we begin to get away from what God would have us to do. The danger. Well, let's continue on here. Over the centuries, the Catholic Church canodized saints for a number of events, problems, illnesses, occupations, and there are several different ones. Saint Stephen is the patron of the stonemasons. Saint Luke is the doctor or saint to pray to. Doctors pray to Saint Luke. Fishermen to Saint Andrew. Carpenters to Saint Joseph. These are some of the patron saints. There are patron saints for farmers, for hunters, for shoemakers. I mean, it just goes on and on. And there, of course, is even a patron saint of love, Valentine. Saint Valentine. Further, and it's certainly a corruption that's been going on for a very long time.

So is there danger in what we think maybe some think is a harmless holiday? Is this an actually official church holiday of the Roman Catholic Church and probably some of her daughters? It's official holiday, church holiday. But really, what harm can there be? Some will argue and ask the question, what harm can there be in the celebration of lovers?

In the name of Saint Valentine. After all, what does it matter that some of the days' customs stem from pagan origins or from pagan religious rites? How can love be wrong? You see how this intermingling still continues, doesn't it?

How can love be wrong? We're doing these things for the reason of love. How can that be wrong? Rather than we know there's nothing wrong with showing love to others, after all, God talks about that over and over again. And we're supposed to love Him, of course, first and foremost of all, these two great commandments and also to love our neighbors ourselves. So we know it's not wrong to have love, but what's been lost is how we go about it.

How we go about it and how we worship God, for that matter, is whether we are actually following what God teaches from Scripture. Because if we're really going to love Him, we know that the Scripture that says, if you love Me, keep My commandments. If you really love Me, you'll do that and you'll follow Me. You'll follow the example of My Son, Jesus Christ.

But sometimes, we look to the way of the Gentiles or we look to our own way. The way that seems right to us. You know, it's like an automobile manufacturing telling you only to put gasoline in the engine to make it run. And we decide we know better, so we're going to put diesel fuel in. And if you've ever done that by mistake, it doesn't work. It doesn't work.

Brother, there are so many emphasis on this day. I was talking to a mother in the Southern Minnesota congregation whose son was having a very difficult time in school because of Valentine's Day.

He felt out of touch. You know, everyone else was doing it. He was confused.

You know, the fruit of Valentine's Day, and maybe some of you can remember going back to elementary school. Did you have that? The Valentine's Day, where you would write Valentine's Days, maybe several people put it in the box, and then you would draw one out? You know, that could be actually spiritually dangerous, in a way, for children, spiritually, and maybe even physically. You know, it can be something that can have a negative effect, could be damaging, could end up hurting people's lives. You know, there was great pressure when I was in elementary school from the teachers. You know, for everyone to be involved, to send everyone else in the class the Valentine's card, and then there was this unruly rule, you maybe would get that one from that special someone that you kind of like from a distance, that you'd get that card.

And perhaps you can understand how things could have gotten out of hand and could go on wrong, and you could maybe have an attachment too early. You know, elementary level, trying to encourage this type of thing at the elementary level, even junior high level, even high school level. You know, it's just not good. And yet, Valentine's Day encourages this very dynamic, even among young children, asking for trouble and encourages this practice. Let's go to Ecclesiastes 3, verse 1. We'll go through this rather quickly. Pick up the principle. Ecclesiastes 3, in verse 1.

To everything there is a season, and every time for every purpose under heaven. Let's skip down to the first line of verse 8. There is a time for love. Brethren, there's a time for love, and there's a time when it's not the time for love.

You don't have the spiritual maturity. You know, for a child in elementary school, junior high, even high school, you know, the time for love is not necessarily that time. That's what God's word says. And this holiday encourages that at a very young age.

As parents, we're responsible. We have the responsibility to make sure our children don't get involved before the time. There is a time for love. Let's turn over to the Song of Solomon.

Song of Solomon here right after the book of Ecclesiastes 2, verse 7. It's a wonderful love story. There's a wonderful love story about a woman who is in love with her husband, their young married couple, but she's got some advice and she's got some guidance for a younger sister or someone who's younger than her. In fact, I'll read Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verse 7, but I'll also refer to a couple other scriptures in Song of Solomon that say the exact same thing. She gives advice and she says, I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the does of the field, do not stir up nor awaken love until it pleases. Now, a different translation there is, do not awaken love until the right time. It can be a wrong time to stir up love. And so the advice here is, do not stir up nor awaken love until the right time. It says the same thing in chapter 3 and verse 5. You can write that down. It says the same thing in chapter 8 and verse 4. Three different emphasis. And of course, three is a number that's making emphasis when God's trying to communicate. You say something three times. As I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up nor awaken love until the time. So here's a quick review of what we've covered so far regarding the background of Valentine's Day. By most accepted historians, Valentine's Day is an adaptation by the Catholic Church of an ancient Roman festival, a celebration by the name of Lupercalia. The Catholic Church updated and connected it with St. Valentine somewhere around probably around 496 AD. It took off commercially as a holiday in this country in the late 1800s and promoted as a day to show your love to others, especially romantic love to someone special to you. So again, let's ask the question. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with showing romantic love to someone who's special to you? Well, here's the problem, among other things. Lupercalia was an immoral fertility feast, and it featured many sexual things. It featured gluttony. It featured drunkenness. And at the end of the festivities, the young men would draw the name of a young lady out of a box. And the two were considered a pair, sexually and otherwise, for the next year.

As a festival, this Lupercalia was dedicated to the Roman god, Pan, recognized as the god of fields, of groves, of wooded glens, and pictured as having the hindquarters and legs and the horns of a goat. And this pagan deity was connected with fertility. None of what is connected to these false gods, these false deities, these festival that they kept, is mentioned in Scripture. None of it. And it's not worthy of what God would have us to observe.

Some will say, or ask the question, what's wrong with a little paganism? What's wrong with a little paganism? What about showing love on Valentine's Day? I'm not doing it for pagan reasons. So it should be okay.

To which I believe the Scriptures answer, God answers, no. It's not okay. Why? Because the expression of that kind of love is still rooted in a former pagan holiday. True Christians must not adopt pagan festivals as holidays, but God would expect us to strive to please Him in everything we do. I mean, He is after all God. He does have the right to tell us His way and the way that He wants His sons and daughters to go and the way that we should worship Him.

Even when you think you're innocently observing a holiday like this, you're still advancing the origins and the meanings of the day. You're still advancing into the next generation.

Especially from God's perspective, He knows. He knows where it started.

He knows where it came from. It had nothing to do with any thought of His mind at all.

He knows where it originates from. And God says, don't do this. Don't do this. His word is clear. His instructions are very precise.

Don't add to what I say. Don't take away from what I say.

When we merge pagan teachings, which has probably been done for a long time, it probably does go back to the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It's been ongoing for a long time. When we merge truth and error, when we merge pagan teachings with what God instructs in the Scripture, we weaken the truth.

And it starts a process of corruption. It's like cancer.

And even though you try to crush it and you think you can put the good face on it, the embers are still there. And then they start to inflame eventually. And it goes back to the original evil eventually in time. God's way is a way of true love. We're going to talk about love. God's way is a way of true love. Showing love as God instructs is not wrong. And that includes romantic love. It's a good thing to express our love towards others through a card, through flowers, through dinner, or any other number of ways. But don't do it under the trappings of a pagan home. You don't have to do it on February 14th. Don't do it under those trappings. If someone is special to you, then do it throughout the year, rather than waiting until February 14th.

God is personified, we know, by love, a godly love that He has. I'll just reference 1 John 4, verse 8. 1 John 4, verse 8. He that loves not knows not God, because God is not God. Knows not God, because God is love. And godly love is a genuine, outgoing concern for the welfare of others, for the benefit of others, as God would love them. Jesus Christ gave us the example of how He and the Father love others, and He said, I give you an example to love one another as I've loved you. We know that God expects us, He loves us, He expects us to love Him. And He tells us, if you love Me, then keep My commandments. Follow My example. Follow the example of My firstborn son. True followers of God, which we hope to be, brethren, should desire to be faithful to Him, to honor Him, to respect Him, to obey what He says, and to observe the days that He does give to us in Scripture in Leviticus 23. But celebrating holidays like Valentine's Day, in opposition to God's instruction, it doesn't honor Him. It doesn't result in obedience, no matter how innocent we may think it is or how well-intentioned we may be. Let's go over to Ezekiel 22, verse 6. Ezekiel 22, verse 6. Though the practices of lubricalia have been repackaged and dressed up in the form of Valentine's Day, these verses indicate that they're just as detestable to God as they've always been. Instead of pagan days and practices, God wants us to focus on His holiness, His holy days that are given in Scripture, which actually point to an amazing, eye-opening plan of His. A plan actually for all humanity. Let's notice it does matter to God when all things are done. He expects us to understand the difference between the holy and the profane. Ezekiel 22, verse 26. God says, "...her priests have violated my law, and they profaned my holy things. They have not distinguished between the holy and the unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean." God says, there is a difference. And I want my priests to tell my people what the difference is. That they're holy people. That I want them to be holy like I am holy. And I want them to follow my example. And I want them to listen to the things that I say. And I don't want them to add or take away what I say. God warned His people Israel, the people He chose to actually represent true religion, not to mix pagan customs, not to learn the way of the Gentiles, but to worship Him in the way that He says He wants to be worshiped. Let's go to Leviticus 18, verse 1. Leviticus 18, verse 1. God talks about this over and over again. It's a pretty simple concept, but apparently we have difficulty applying it. Leviticus 18, verse 1. God is warning His people here that He wants them to represent the true religion, His religion, and not to mix customs with worship, the customs of other nations. Leviticus 18, verse 1. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, and He said, I want you to speak to the children of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God, not somebody else but me. And according, verse 3, to the doings of the land of Egypt where you dwell, you shall not do. Okay, I'm going to take you out of Egypt. You've been there for, your generations have been there for 400-some years. From the things that you learned there, the way of the Egyptians, the things that they did, I don't want you to do that anymore. According to the doings of the land of Egypt where you dwelt, you shall not do.

And according to the doings of the land of Canaan where I am going to bring you, so we're going to go into the land of Canaan where I'm going to bring you, you shall not do. Don't forget what you learned from the Egyptians and where you're going. I don't want you to learn their way.

You shall not walk in their ordinances. Verse 4, but this is what I want you to do. And the same lesson applies to us today, the Israel of God and the New Covenant. You shall observe my judgments and keep my ordinances, and you'll walk in them.

It's pretty simple. It's pretty simple.

So notice 1 Corinthians 10. Let's go to the New Testament here. Paul compares the mixing of paganism with Christianity to worshiping demons. Pretty serious stuff. And I think Paul knew what he was talking about. 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 19.

1 Corinthians 10 and verse 19.

What am I saying then? That an idol is anything? Or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons. You know, the way of the Gentiles, the idols they sacrifice to, God says He calls a spade a spade. They're sacrificing the demons, and not to me, not to God.

And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can't mix those two. You can't do it. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons. So it's clear. Everywhere we look, it's clear. We have to separate the two. Holidays like St. Valentine's continually secularize things into icons of Western culture. Even non-Christians observe it. That's the fruit of this mixture. It even gets to the point where non-religious people observe what is supposed to be a Christian holiday.

And so we see some of these things. Let's go to Deuteronomy 12, verse 2.

You know, there are some that say, well, it's secular. It has no religious connection at all. It's secular. And they conclude, since it's secular, and since what God actually forbids is using pagan customs to worship Him, we're free to practice pagan worship customs if they're not used in worship. Sure. We can do the Cupid thing. We can do the Valentine's thing because we're not utilizing it in worship to God yet. This ignores the fact that God told His people, Israel, to completely eradicate all vestiges of false religion. Let's notice that in Deuteronomy 12, verse 2. Not merely in their worship of Him, but to completely eradicate all false religious practices. Deuteronomy 12, verse 2. You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess serve their gods. On the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree, wipe it out.

Totally remove it. Verse 3. And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, burn their wooden images with fire. You shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from this place.

Total destruction.

You shall not worship the Lord your God with such things.

Further, when God called us, you know, we said, okay, God, whatever You say will do. Now I'm going to enter into that baptism covenant. Whatever You say, I will do. I'm going to worship You and You alone. I'm going to worship You in spirit and in truth.

Let's turn over to 1 Peter 4, verse 1. 1 Peter 4, verse 1. I think this is a good summary Scripture, brethren. 1 Peter 4, verse 1. The things we participate in should be seen in the context of bringing glory to God, of obedience to God, honor to God. Let's see what it says here in 1 Peter 4, verse 1.

It says, therefore, so it's kind of a connection of what's gone on before, therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind. Would Jesus Christ observe Valentine's Day?

Arm yourselves also with the same mind, for He who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that He should no longer live the rest of His time in the flesh for the lusts of men. Brethren, we talk about this festival of Lupercasio, you know, the sexual part, the lusting part, all of that that goes with it, that we should no longer live the rest of His time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. Jesus said, not my will, Father, but yours be done. For we have spent enough time, we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles, of going the way of the Gentiles. We've done enough of that. When we walked in lewdness and lusts and drunkenness and revelries and in drinking parties and abominable heresies, I think Peter sums that up pretty well. We've gone the way of the Gentiles enough. Let's go to the way of the family of God.

That doesn't mean we can't have fun. That doesn't mean that God doesn't want us to enjoy life. But our fun should not be independent of Him and what He has to say about things. All that we think, all that we say, all that we do, should be in honor to Him. Be God's honor.

Last Scripture. John 4, verse 23.

John 4, verse 23.

Actually, alluded to it, but we'll look at it here. Here's chapter 4, and verse 23.

Pick it up in verse 22. Jesus is talking to the woman at the well. He says, you worship what you do not know. We know what we worship. For salvation is of the Jews, but the hour is coming. And now He is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, because the Father is seeking such to worship Him. Brethren, we can worship in falsity. God is looking for us to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Brethren, the observance of Valentine's Day is just one of the many traditions that must be rooted out of Christian's lives. If Christianity is to return to the true foundation that was laid by our older brother Jesus Christ.