I Need to Repent

I must take some time to repent. I feel I have really let my Creator down, but not only Him. I have let numerous others down in the process. In this blog post I intend to lay out what I have done, but understand that it is not my intention to put the spotlight on me. My intentions are number 1 to confess my sin, but number 2 I hope to help others see my sin so that they may recognize it in themselves, if necessary so that they may work on getting it out of their lives as well.
I just want to be very clear about who is writing this as most times I write under the alias Gumbeaux Deaux or BigDaddyBigz. This is Brady Vaughn! Now that we have this established I can begin.
A few years ago I accepted the call to "preach the Gospel". At least that was my limited understanding at the time. My prayer to God was that I would not preach unless He showed me His Truth and what He wanted from His children. Well let me just tell you right now, I had no idea the paths that I would go down because of that prayer. You see, I was very sincere in wanting to know very clearly who He was to me. I was taken down some roads that had me seriously wishing I had just stayed on the traditional Christian path. But OH NO, I was gonna have to ride the  horse I saddled. I asked God for truth, and He began delivering. But, He also had to use some things that were a bit unorthodox, maybe even a bit strange to cut away the traditional baggage that I needed to lose in order to more readily accept some things that were going to be hard for me to accept. One of those things was a book and the teachings of Alexander Hislop.
Now, I want to clarify something before I go any further. I am not calling anyone a liar. Not even close. The only thing I am doing is calling myself a gossip and someone who has a bad habit of bearing false witness. Please continue reading so that you can fully understand where I am coming from.
In short Alexander Hislop wrote a book called "The Two Babylons". In his book he makes numerous comparisons between the Catholic Church and ancient sun-god worship. I am not saying that his comparisons were right or wrong. I honestly don't know as I am not a historian....but neither was he. Alexander Hislop never claimed to be a historian. He was not recognized as having any academic authority. He was someone who observed some things in the Catholic Church that looked similar to something else in ancient history, and BAM! he made a few assumptions, shared them in a book for all the world to see. That book has been turned into an academic authority by some well-meaning but misinformed people. I was one of those.
You see, because of the ideas in his book being repeated by people whom I trusted simply because they were in a pulpit and had the appearance of authority I gave up celebrating Christmas and Easter due to presumed similarities to sun-god worship. Don't freak out! I'm not going back. Just keep reading.
God used these teachings because of where I was at mentally at the time. Not because they were true, but because it was the only way to break me down and see what He wanted me to see. What He wanted me to see was the eternal truth behind His Feasts. The Biblical Feasts created by God Himself.
Now I know what some of you are thinking. You are thinking that if Hislop's teachings are untrue then I must believe that God lied to me by letting me believe these things. I tell you right now, that is the furthest thing from what I'm trying to say. God allowed me to see what someone else thought to be a possibility so that I could see the truth of what He had created in His Feast days. What I did with the information I had learned is actually what I need to confess and repent of.
First let me give you what my thoughts are on conspiracy theories. I'll try to make this as simple as I can. If I were to look something a group of people were doing and say "oh, that looks like they are doing something I really don't think they should be doing. I must go and tell the others!" This is how a conspiracy theory starts. It doesn't matter if you were right in your assumptions or not, the fact is you were convinced you were right, you wrote a facebook post, blog post, or as in Hislop's case, you wrote a book. Now you appear to have authority on the matter. Congratulations, you just created a conspiracy theory. But whats worse, you have become a true to life false witness.
I want to explain what a false witness is in the simplest possible terms. You are a false witness anytime you repeat something as TRUTH when you did not actually witness it yourself. This includes any form of gossip, but is not exclusive to gossip. In its simplest form repeating something you hear or read without verifying its truth first can make you guilty of being a "false-witness". This is my sin....
What I did is I took the words of Alexander Hislop and the words of others who have repeated his teachings, and I have shared them as truth when I honestly do not know if he was right in what he said. This makes me a false witness.
I know this, that since God has shown me in no uncertain terms that His people are to worship Him through His Feast Days even still, my life spiritual life has been much better. I have a real relationship with my Creator now. A relationship like I've never had before. I could never go back to celebrating Christmas and Easter, but not because I read somewhere that it might be sun-god worship. It may well be. I don't know, and I really don't care if it is or not. If nothing else I gave it for the most important reason ever. So I could make room for my Creator in my life.
Folks, we must do things for the right reasons every chance we get, but sometimes He has to shake us up a bit with some things that we may agree with now because of our current understanding of things, only to find out later that they might not have been correct. God sometimes uses the strangest things to get our attention, but remember, you must grow continually. Even if He shows you something today He may show you something that may cause you to wonder why He let you believe something weird that wasn't even true. It may just be that He is simply trying to you from one place to another.
So let me just end this by saying I am deeply sorry to anyone of my family or friends that I may have alienated because of my limited understanding of the Word of God. I also want to apologize for spreading gossip or being a false witness to the things written in a book that has no academic value. If I have hurt you in any way by doing so I ask your forgiveness now. I have made my peace with God in this matter, but I need you to know that I am striving to stop being a gossip, busy body, pot stirrer, or one that likes to tell things that I can't verify as truth. Conspiracy theories hurt people. I have spread one, and I am truly sorry.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope God blesses you as you stay in His will.

Brady G Vaughn