Is Luck your god or is faith in God your stand? You must make the choice!

JUST WHAT IS THE FORCE WE TERM LUCK?

Does it come from God or from a more sinister root of Babalonian origin?

We who SAY we represent the Lord Jesus MUST be very careful in just HOW we represent him before the world..Why? Because the world cares how its done more than the church seems too care these days.

 We can't allow our witness to become tainted by worldly influences no matter how innocent that stain may seem, for first impressions are those that LAST THE LONGEST because we all tend towards the lowest denominator when we view others. 

The world wallows in negative ideas, opinions, and viewpoints so they will see us this way WITHOUT our help so its time for the TRUE church to wake up to that fact!

Pronunciation: (luk),

1. the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities: With my luck I'll probably get pneumonia.

2. good fortune; advantage or success, considered as the result of chance: He had no luck finding work.

3. a combination of circumstances, events, etc., operating by chance to bring good or ill to a person: She's had nothing but bad luck all year.

4. some object on which good fortune is supposed to depend: This rabbit's foot is my luck.

5. down on one's luck, in unfortunate circumstances; unlucky: She hated to see her old friend so down on her luck.

6. in luck, lucky; fortunate: We were in luck, for the bakery was still open.

7. luck of the draw, the luck one has in or as if in drawing cards.

8. out of luck, unlucky; unfortunate: When it comes to getting World Series tickets, we're usually out of luck.

9. push one's luck, Informal.to try to make too much of an opportunity; go too far. Also,crowd on

Synonyms for luck 

Noun

1. fortune, destiny, fate, luck, lot, circumstances, portion, condition
usage: your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you); "whatever my fortune may be"; "deserved a better fate"; "has a happy lot"; "the luck of the Irish"; "a victim of circumstances"; "success that was her portion" 

2. luck, fortune, chance, hazard, phenomenon
usage: an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another; "bad luck caused his downfall"; "we ran into each other by pure chance" 

3. luck, fortune, phenomenon
usage: an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that leads to a favorable outcome; "it was my good luck to be there"; "they say luck is a lady"; "it was as if fortune guided his hand"

Have you ever been lectured by another Christian after you wished someone "good luck". How do you feel about using the greeting? Isn’t it just a common expression, an affirmation, like saying "best wishes"? Or is it really saying "good Lucifer"?

I have heard Christians say things like, "I don’t believe in luck" or "For Christians there is no such thing as luck", as though it is a biblical doctrine, but is that really true. Is there such a thing as "luck", happenstance, good fortune, flukes, breaks, etc. for Christians or does the Lord order everything?

 Does ‘life’ just happen to us or is everything in God’s plan. 

Do things sometimes "just happen" to us or is everything predetermined? Is there such a thing for Christians as accidents, good or bad? Is winning (or losing) the lottery and act of God or is it just luck?

God created the laws that He spoke into existence to keep the UNIVERSE spinning to a cause-and-effect. We have LIMITED control over our actions, but NO CONTROL WHATSOEVER over the actions of others, nature, whatever other forces are out there affecting the situation, EXCEPT when we are under God's control in spiritual warfare prayer..THEN AND ONLY THEN ARE CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGED TO OUR BENEFIT!

So to us, IN A LIMITED PERSPECTIVE OF FLESH AND BLOOD there is an element of 'randomness', or" luck" to it BUT this is ONLY due to our "FINITE" sight, our vision is so small compared to our "INFINITE GOD" that what we can see is INCOMPLETE so it is in man's makeup IF he or she has NO MORAL makeup to REPLACE THEIR LACK OF UNDERSTANDING of a situation with a "HIGHER FORCE" that controls their destiny! God says He has plans for us. 

If we are in communion with Him, pleasing to Him, He does control our destiny. What about an auto accident that takes the life of a child, puts you in the hospital and runs up a hospital bill that ruins your credit and good name and exhausts your resources


was it just a terrible, unfortunate happening (bad luck),or just being BEATEN AT THE GAME OF LIFE BY SATAN'S DECEPTIVE HAND?

 Life happens in this world,BUT if we will "SUBMIT TO GOD'S WILL AND (This is the key to life in Him) OBEY THAT WILL IN ALL DETAILS NO MATTER HOW "SILLY OR RIDICULOUS IT SEEMS, God will see us through any circumstance. 

God will not deliver us from "life" but will see us through it. You see SUFFERING makes us into better people,not only in experience but also in faith,TRIALS TEST OUR FAITH AND BURN AWAY FALSE MOTIVES...I'M NOT REFERRING TO THINGS THAT ARE "SIN RELATED" SUCH AS SICKNESSES & DISEASES which Jesus paid a HIGH price to take from us at the cross.

 These things a Christian has no right to lay hold of as their own,they are to be DELIVERED FROM THEM,BUT even while we are waiting for our faith to grow up into our healing process,we can overcome. 

The very IDEA of LUCK having ANY SWAY over God's creation is MANIFESTLY OPPOSITE of God's LAWS OF CREATION,EVERYTHING GOD MADE FUNCTIONS BY A SET OF UNCHANGING RULES CALLED SCIENCE,and even when WE THINK that things are OUT OF WHACK,THEY ARE STILL FUNCTIONING WITHIN THE SCIENTIFIC LAWS THAT GOD PLACED IN CREATION. What we term "LUCK:GOOD OR BAD" is "THE PRINCIPLE OF SIN NATURE" both in man and affecting nature that SEEMS to "TILT" our perceptions to believe in ANOTHER FORCE OUTSIDE OF GOD THAT CONTROLS OUR FATE AS IF GOD IS INSUFFICIENT TO HANDLE OUR LIFE!


2Co 4:4 "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."


2Co 4:17 " For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; "


2Co 4:18 "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."


2Co 5:17 " Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."


2Co 5:18 " And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;


2Co 5:19 "To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. "


LUCK HAS NO BEARING ON THE CHRISTIANS LIFE WHATSOEVER AND FOR US TO WASTE OUR TIME & GOD'S PRECIOUS TIME WITH EVEN THE SLIGHTEST THOUGHT OF AN OUTSIDE NON-EXISTENT FORCE SUCH AS LUCK,WHICH WAS "INVENTED" BY MEN CENTURY'S AGO TO COMPENSATE FOR AN IGNORANCE OF GOD'S CREATION IS AT THE LEAST APPALLING! We as TRUE BELIEVER'S IN HIM SHOULD NEVER ALLOW OURSELVES TO EVEN THINK IN TERMS OF "LUCK the god of the Faithless"


Assyro-Babylonian magic is closely tied to religion. Forces of nature, occurances, sickness, health, luck, were all tied into religious mythology. Earth and heaven, the realm of the gods, are closely intertwined. What happens in one has direct affect on the other. This parallels the "As above, so below" paradigm in western magic. Gods controlled the forces of nature, they communicated with humans in forms of sins, demons caused sickness, luck was explained by divine presence and it's absence meant that one was abandoned by divine forces due to his/her sins.


Religious practices of ancient Mesopotamian religions could be divided into three sections: those of royalty, those of the priests, and those of the common people. Prayers, fasts, mortifications, and taboos were mostly restricted to royal religious practice. The king could also receive divine messages. 

Priest's religious practice involved the care for the temple and divine images, reciting hymns, and carrying out sacrifices. (Oppenheim, p 181-182) A lot of times priests also performed exorcisms. Little is known about the religious life of a private individual. It was considered that the average citizen did not have the same religious right, so to speak, as royalty or priests to communicate with the gods directly:




It was not considered appropriate for a private person to approach the diety through dreams and visions. (Oppenheim, p 182)


FATE AND DESTINY


In ancient Assyrian and Babylonian culture great emphasis was placed upon fate. People strived to know it and, to some extent, control it. The world for fate was simtu, which also meant destiny. But this word implied more than that. It also meant something like "purpose". Gods gave everything a simtu, from individual humans to animals, plants, and even inanimate things such as rocks. (Oppenheim p 204)


Individual's luck was also explained using religious context. It was determined by spiritual beings preasent at the person's side: ilu (god), istaru (goddess), lamassu (equivalent of angel. feminine), sedu (angel, masculine). (Oppenheim, p 199) Also, by two demons that follow each person: mukil res daniqti or rabis damiqti ("he who offers good things") and mukil res lamutti or rabis lemutti ("he who offers misfortume"). (Oppenheim, p 204)


Divination Divination was extremely important in the Mesopotamian society. Shamash and Adad were considered the gods of divination. (Contenau, p 281) Methods of divination varied from interpreting the placement of internal organs of a sacrificial animal, to astrology. A. Oppenheim divides Assyro-Babylonian divination into two categories:




Two-way communication [with the deity] requires a special technique; in fact, two techniques are kown in Mesopotamia: operational and magical. In both instances the answer comes forth in two possible manners: one is binary, that is, a yes-or-no answer; the other is based on a code accepted by both the deity and the diviner. (Opperhein, p 207-208)

In operational divination, "the diviner offers the deity the opportunity to directly affecting an object activated by diviner." Some examples of that include: casting lots, pouring oil into water, producing smoke from a censer. In magical divination, deity produces changes in natural phenomena such as behavior of birds and animals, their internal organs, changes in positions of celestial bodies, etc. (Opperhein, p 208-209)

In operational divination, "the diviner offers the deity the opportunity to directly affecting an object activated by diviner." Some examples of that include: casting lots, pouring oil into water, producing smoke from a censer. In magical divination, deity produces changes in natural phenomena such as behavior of birds and animals, their internal organs, changes in positions of celestial bodies, etc. (Opperhein, p 208-209) 

Extispicy, that is interpreting abnormalities in location and looks of animal's internal organs was a very popular method of divination. The organ of special importance was the liver, which was considered the seat of the soul of the animal ( Wikipedia). There have been found clay replicas of various level of detail of animal livers that were evidently used as examples in the training of baru (diviner) initiates. Divination using the liver even has its own name: hepatoscopy. 

Behavior of live animals, birds in particular, was observed for divination as well. Archaeologists have discovered a collection of tablets, Summa alu that are a collection of omens derived from animal behavior. (Opperhein, p 213)
Another popular form of divination was using malformed infants born to either humans or animals. Summa izbu are a collection of omens pertaining to human and animal birth abnormalities. (Opperhein, p 218) 

It seems that in Mesopotamian society, almost everything could be considered an omen. What we would call a random occurance in our society, a person of the Mesopotamian world view may consider an omen from the gods. Dreams were important divination tools as well.

Modern astrology had its beginnings in ancient Babylonia.(Wikipedia, "History of Astrology"). Not only were celestial events considered to be omens from the gods, some gods themselves were identified with celestial bodies. Marduk was identified with Jupiter, Ishtar with Venus, Shamash wit the sun, Sin with the moon, etc. (Wikipedia, "History of Astrology") However, the old Babylonian astrology was rather different from astrology we know today. Georges Contenau writes:




Babylonian astrology was fundamentally based on meteorology, being founded upon observations of the winds, the color of the stars, the occultation of the planets and eclipses… (Contenau, p 289)


So phenomena such as clouds, halo around the moon, storms, eclipses were considered parts of the science of astrology. ( Astrology Omens)


The moon was of the foremost importance in Babylonian astrology. It’s phases and the time of its appearance in the sky was the subject of much attention. (Astrology Omens)

 Appearance of the moon earlier then was expected, for example, was considered a bad omen. (Wikipedia, History of Astrology) Astrological predictions were short term and were not taken as predictions of what is destined to happen, but signes and warnings/omens from the gods as to what could result if things went on as usual (in case of bad omens, if the king did not take special action to correct the situation). (Astrology Omens)


MAGIC


Assyrian and Babylonian magic, not only had its roots in religion, but was a major part of religion itself. Magic was concerned with aversion of bad things predicted from omens and exorcism of demons (the term for exorcist was âshipu). The primary gods of magic were Marduk and Ea. (Contenau, p 291) The magic that âshipu priests practiced was what is commonly known today as "white" magic. People who practiced evil magic were called sorcerers. Besides exorcising demons, another of âshipu’s duties included removal of curses placed on the victim by sorcerers.


The most prominent element in Assyro-Babylonian magic is the true name of a person or demon being exorcised. In fact, name was almost equivalent with the object/individual itself. If something was not named, it did not exist. 

Names were thought to posses great power and for shiptu (incantation) (Wikipedia, Assyro-Babylonian religion") to be effective, it had to contain the true name of its subject. Voice can harvest the power and knowledge contained within a name. Writing the name down "projects it indefinitely" (Contenau, p 161)


The shiptu and names contained in them had to be pronounced in a special tone of voice. The word used to describe one speaking in this manner, luhhushu is even different from the regular verb "say", and had a meaning similar to "utter", "murmur", or "chant". (Contenau, p 162-163)




In the name of the gods of heaven and earth the priest called on his adversary by name (this very exposure robbed him [the adversary] of his power). (Contenau, p 291)


This concept of the name being tightly related to the object to which it belongs also has its origins in religion. Before the creation of the world there was primeval chaos, which is attributed to the fact that nothing had a name. The gods were said to undergo the following process when creating a being or thing:




The creating god mentally defines the nature-to-be of his creation: when it has taken final shape in his imagination and he has given it a name, he draws its shape, whereby it acquires almost complete life. (Contenau, p 197)


It is in Mesopotamia that the practice known as isopsephia, otherwise known as gematria, was first used:




The Mesopotamians next conceived the idea of ascribing a numerical value to each sign in their syllabary so that every name was capable of numerical expression… (Contenau, p 166)


There are even records of people signing the name in form of numbers, not letters. (Contenau, p 166) Gods were considered to be in a numerical hierarchy of sorts as well. Anu’s number was 60, which was considered the perfect number. Sin’s (the moon god) number was 30 (number of days in a lunar month), Ishtar’s was 15. (Contenau, p 258)


The mathematical system was based on "sexagesimal" principle. Whence now we use decimal system: multiples of 10, in sexagesimal system is in alternating multiples of 6 and 10.




Perhaps the most important result was that the Babylonian ‘sexagesimal’ system became widespread, and as applied to the recording of time, this gave birth to the twelve-hour day. Although this was later replaced by the Egyptian twenty- four hour day, 20th century time is still based on the division of the hour into 60 minutes and the minute into 60 senconds. (Astrology at RIN.ru)


Other then the invocation of the gods and the use of correct names to harvest the power of and control the entities involved in the magic ritual, a lot of Mesopotamian magic was sympathetic. Sometimes the image of a demon thought to be possessing the sick person was burned or tortured, other examples include watering plants to induce rain, etc. So you see that "Luck" is tied DIRECTLY to Babylonian Mystery Religions and Witchcraft that GOD HATES!


Babylonian civilisation lasted from 1800 till 600 BC. It was an urban society with twelve or so cities in the nation, resting upon the agricultural land surrounding the cities. The social structure was headed by the king as absolute monarch. Under him were a group of appointed governors and administrators. Beneath this were freemen and then slaves. The culture lasted for about 1200 years.


The world ancient people’s lived in was one filled with spirits and demons, gods and goddesses, good and evil forces. This is understandable when we realise our forebears had no clear conception of how natural forces, illness, the mind, worked.

 The many intangibles they were surrounded by, the immense uncertainties they faced, were quite usefully called spirits - invisible/mysterious yet potent powers that could act upon one for good or ill. Their beliefs and observations regarding dreams were therefore deeply coloured by their world view. 

Death was a certainty, illness, physical or mental was a possibility, love and reproduction were drives to be satisfied, and so many dreams or myths centred on the way they met these. It must also be remembered that such cultures had, according to recent theories, only recently developed personal self-awreness; only just lost direct perception of subjective gods.


In the Babylonian culture the attempt to find certainty amid uncertainty, to control or direct the threatening forces of nature, to find ones way through the events of life, led to a wide array of techniques concerned with prophecy, magical control or propitiation, and trying to know the will of the gods.

The kings hoped that a god would be on their side in battle, or would give them confidence by telling them in a dream that they would overcome their enemies. In fact the influence of these early Babylonian beliefs is still present in modern religion where each side of an opposing army, even with belief in the same God, prays for support and victory.


The Babylonians believed that an event in one part of the world or cosmos, would cause an occurrence in another part. A comet appearing in the sky for instance, would be seen as presaging great social or personal changes. 

This link between the cosmos and the individual also suggested to the Babylonians that the cosmos could be influenced by human action - thus the rituals of appeasement or magic. These beliefs led to an examination of any mysterious event in an attempt to understand its personal or wider significance. Dreams were one of the possible sources of such prophecy or enlightening information. 

Over a long period of time strange events such as the birth of a two headed calf, or a strange dream, were noted and following events watched. If a barren woman had a child after such an event, then it was thought that the next time the event occurred, a barren woman would again be made fertile. Of course this led to deliberate attempts to obtain or perform the first, to bring about the latter - thus magic. There were in fact magic rituals to prevent bad or evil dreams.


Dreams were classified into several types. Those of rulers and leaders such as priests were seen as one type, and those of common people of another. There was also a division between good dreams and bad dreams. 

If one goes into any large book-store and looks at dream dictionaries written before the advent of modern psychotherapy, it can easily be seen that most definitions are still written in the same style - that the dream will bring good or bad luck regarding money, romance or health.

 In fact they are derivations of the ancient Babylonian dream books. These speculations, observations and collection of folk beliefs were put into book form by the Babylonians, and are thought to have contained texts on dreams dating back to 5000 BC. These ancient Babylonian dream dictionaries were copied and taken to the library at 

Nineveh by king Assurbanipal. The great dream encyclopaedist Artemidorus later drew on these records for his own learning. The part of the Jewish Talmud which was written during the Babylonian captivity is also full of dream interpretations and ways of dealing with dreams, and undoubtedly drew on the Babylonian library.


These dream dictionaries contained beliefs and observations took note of any belief however bizarre. As an example of some of the ideas presented in this collection of works, we can read - ‘If a date appears on a man’s head, it means woe. If a fish appears on his head, that man will be strong. If a mountain appears on his head, it means that he will have no rival. 

If salt appears on his head, it means that he will apply himself to bald his house….If a man dreams that he goes to a pleasure garden, it means that he will gain his freedom. If a goes to a market garden, his dwelling will be uncomfortable. If he goes to kindle a firebrand he will see woe during his days. If he goes to sow a field, he will escape from a ruined place. If he goes to hunt in the country, he will be eminent. If he goes to an oxstall, (he will have) safety. If he goes to the sheepfold, he will rise to the first rank.’


Babylonian culture also produced one of the great, and certainly the oldest literary work which included a series of dreams. 

This is the Epic Of Gilgamesh which dates from about 2000 BC, and is the oldest hero account. It is the story of how the king, Gilgamesh, searches for immortality having lost his friend Enkidu. Is this enough information to let you know as a believer that God hates any connection to "Luck"? Luck stems from PURE MYTH not facts of life so why base your life on it?