tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73872865074677350732024-02-21T01:03:15.878-08:00Pagan Bush, Satan's Claws, and other church CompromisesDonald C Phinney IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15562627612151819950noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7387286507467735073.post-92073929037737240532010-11-08T17:46:00.000-08:002012-11-22T07:18:44.952-08:00Tis the season for Pagan Foolishness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUdrAhpip4lcXcm9C6QGaUN7kWqa5fo1QrAaQc1EYHbcJE9161R0TiRfJhF5TNB49aWnQN0CyBJDFX1cTfO5J7axit6qkU-tpjKNToqbqqDUv7OCx-wQ5Qk5WXTAkp22q_maEpVhxey2s/s1600/santa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUdrAhpip4lcXcm9C6QGaUN7kWqa5fo1QrAaQc1EYHbcJE9161R0TiRfJhF5TNB49aWnQN0CyBJDFX1cTfO5J7axit6qkU-tpjKNToqbqqDUv7OCx-wQ5Qk5WXTAkp22q_maEpVhxey2s/s200/santa.jpg" title="" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.realmagick.com/7014/how-odin-became-santa-claus-symbolism-and-pagan-origins-of-a-gift-giving-saint/" target="_blank">Modern day Odin</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> I have noticed a strong emotional response from folks when they realize Christmas is pagan and not of Christ.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> To Suddenly be confronted with the fact that some of your fondest family memories are of Pagan worship practices can be emotionally traumatic.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b> Of course being a Christian means we must change even at the expense of suffering persecution for our beliefs. Imagine the response when you announce to your family that Pagan trees in the living room are not of God.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b> Your spouse, kids, parents and all the rest that are still Celebrating this holiday will try to pressure you into joining in the practices and traditions of this overly comertial holliday with pagan roots.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b> over on the right is a list of link to the history of birthdays celebrations, Trees, Red suited norse gods (and the black suited st nick).</b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Rather than fill up <a href="http://www.myspace.com/donphinney">MySpace</a> and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/RoyceAofB?v=feed&story_fbid=162063696550" target="royce">Face Book</a> pages with the Reactions and Debates associated with this topic, and other discussion about sudo christian practices I started this blog.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> The Idea Being to post a link to this blog when I or others see this type of error or discussion and provide it with a better forum. The Rules of conduct are on the top right.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Yours in Christ,</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Donald C Phinney II</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.donphinney.com/">http://www.donphinney.com</a></b></span></div>
Donald C Phinney IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15562627612151819950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7387286507467735073.post-6378184182068648672009-12-23T12:02:00.000-08:002009-12-23T12:05:50.485-08:00Pagan Origins of Christmas<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Pagan Origin<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Times New Roman';"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "> excerpt -When all of the interconnected traditions, filled with the symbolism of worshipping an ancient pagan, humanly devised god, are taught, this is not worshipping the true Creator.</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Nearly all aspects of Christmas observance have their roots in Roman custom and religion. Consider the following admission from a large American newspaper (<i>The Buffalo News</i>, Nov. 22, 1984): “The earliest reference to Christmas being marked on Dec. 25 comes from the second century after Jesus’ birth. It is considered likely the first Christmas celebrations <i>were in reaction to the Roman Saturnalia</i>, a harvest festival that marked the winter solstice—the return of the sun—and honored Saturn, the god of sowing. Saturnalia was a rowdy time, <i>much opposed by the more austere leaders among the still-minority Christian sect.</i> Christmas developed, one scholar says, as a means of replacing worship of the <i>sun</i> with worship of the Son. By 529 A.D., after Christianity had become the official state religion of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinian made Christmas a civic holiday. The celebration of Christmas reached its peak—some would say its worst moments—in the medieval period when it became a time for conspicuous consumption and unequaled revelry.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Consider these quotes from the <i>Catholic Encyclopedia</i>, 1911 edition, under “Christmas”: “Christmas was <i>not</i> among the earliest festivals of the Church…The first evidence of the feast is<i> from Egypt</i>.” Further, “Pagan customs centring round the January calends gravitated to Christmas.” Under “Natal Day,” Origen, an early Catholic writer, admitted, “…In the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his birthday. It is <i>only sinners</i> (like Pharaoh and Herod) who make great rejoicings over the day on which they were born into this world” (emphasis mine).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The <i>Encyclopedia Americana</i>, 1956 edition, adds, “Christmas…was not observed in the first centuries of the Christian church, since the Christian usage in general was to celebrate the death of remarkable persons rather than their birth…a feast was established in memory of this event [Christ’s birth] <i>in the 4th century</i>. In the 5th century the Western church ordered the feast to be celebrated on the<i> day of the Mithraic rites of the birth of the sun and at the close of the Saturnalia</i>, as no certain knowledge of the day of Christ’s birth existed.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">There is no mistaking the origin of the modern Christmas celebration. Many additional sources could be cited and we will return to this later. Let’s begin to tie some other facts together.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">It was 300 years after Christ before the Roman church kept Christmas, and not until the fifth century that it was mandated to be kept throughout the empire as an official festival honoring “Christ.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Can Christ be Honored by Christmas?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The most common justification that one will hear regarding Christmas is that people have replaced old pagan customs and intents by asserting that they are now “focusing on Christ.” I have heard many say that they are “honoring Christ” in their Christmas-keeping. The problem is that God does not say this is acceptable to Him! <i>Actually</i>,<i> He plainly commands against it! </i>Keeping Christmas <i>dishonors</i> Christ! He considers everything about it to be an abomination! We will soon see why.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Christ said, “But in <i>vain</i> they do <i>worship Me</i>, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:9). Christmas is not a command of God—it is a tradition of men. Christ continued, “Full well you <i>reject</i> the commandment of God, that you may keep your own <i>tradition</i>” (Mark 7:9). Every year, throughout the world, on December 25th, hundreds of millions do just that!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">We will see that God plainly commands, “Follow not the way of the heathen.” But most people do not fear God, and He allows them to make their own decisions. Human beings are free moral agents—free to obey or disobey God! But woe to those who ignore the plain Word of God!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Was Christ Born on December 25th?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Christ was born in the fall of the year. Many have mistakenly believed He was born around the beginning of winter—December 25th! They are wrong! Notice the <i>Adam Clarke Commentary</i>, volume 5, page 370, New York edition: “It was custom among Jews to send out their sheep to the deserts about the Passover [early spring], and bring them home at the commencement of the <i>first rain.</i>” The first rains began in early-to-mid fall. Continuing with this same quote: “During the time they were out, the shepherds watched them night and day. As…the <i>first rain</i> began early in the month of <i>March-esvan</i>, which answers to part of our <i>October</i> and <i>November</i> [begins sometime in <i>October</i>], we find that the sheep were kept out in the open country during the whole <i>summer</i>. And as these shepherds had not <i>yet</i> brought home their flocks, it is a presumptive argument that <i>October</i> had not yet commenced, and that, consequently, our Lord was not born on the 25th<i> of December</i>, when no flocks were out in the fields; nor could He have been born later than <i>September</i>, as the flocks were still in the fields <i>by night</i>. On this very ground, the <i>nativity</i> in <i>December </i>should be given up. The feeding of the flocks by night in the fields is a <i>chronological fact</i>…See the quotations from the <i>Talmudists </i>in <i>Lightfoot</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Luke 2:8 explains that when Christ was born, “And there were in the same country shepherds <i>abiding in the field</i>, keeping watch over their flock <i>by night</i>.” Note that they were “abiding” in the field. This never happened in December. Both Ezra 10:9-13 and the Song of Solomon 2:11 show that winter was the rainy season and shepherds could not stay on cold, open fields at night.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Numerous encyclopedias plainly state that Christ was not born on December 25th! The <i>Catholic Encyclopedia </i>directly confirms this. In all likelihood, Christ was born in the fall! A lengthy technical explanation would prove this point.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Since we now know that December 25th was nowhere near Christ’s actual birthdate, where did the festival associated with this date come from?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Now read this quote under “Christmas”: “In the Roman world the Saturnalia (December 17) was a time of merrymaking and exchanging of gifts. <i>December 25 was also regarded as the birth date of the Iranian mystery god Mithra</i>, the Sun of Righteousness. On the Roman New Year (January 1), houses were decorated with greenery and lights, and gifts were given to children and the poor. To these observances were added the German and Celtic Yule rites when the Teutonic tribes penetrated into Gaul, Britain, and central Europe. Food and good fellowship, the Yule log and Yule cakes, greenery and fir trees, gifts and greetings all commemorated different aspects of this festive season. Fires and lights, symbols of warmth and lasting life, have always been associated with the winter festival, both pagan and Christian” (<i>Encyclopedia Britannica</i>, 15th Edit. Vol. II, p. 903).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">A final quote about the selection of December 25th as the birthdate of Christ is necessary. Note an article in <i>The Toronto Star</i>, December 1984, by Alan Edmonds, entitled, “<i>We owe a lot to Druids</i>,<i> Dutch</i>”: “The Reformation cast a blight on Christmas. By then, of course, clever <i>ecclesiastical politicians </i>had adopted the Pagan mid-winter festival as the alleged birthdate of Jesus, of Nazareth, and thrown in a few other Pagan goodies to make their takeover more palatable.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">December 25th was not selected because it was the birth of Christ or because it was even near it. It was selected because it coincided with the idolatrous pagan festival <i>Saturnalia</i>—and this celebration must be carefully examined. In any event, we do <i>not</i> know the exact date of Christ’s birth. While God certainly could have made it known, He chose to hide it from the world’s eyes!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Who Was Saturn?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Previous quotes introduced the subject of the Saturnalia. Let’s carefully study just exactly who <i>Saturn</i> was. Consider the following quote from another large American newspaper, <i>The Democrat and Chronicle</i>, Rochester, New York, December 1984: “The Roman festival of Saturnalia, Dec. 17-24, moved citizens to decorate their homes with greens and lights and give gifts to children and the poor. The Dec. 25 festival of <i>natalis solis invicti</i>,<i> the birth of the unconquered sun</i>, was decreed by the emperor Aurelian in A.D. 274 as a Winter Solstice celebration, and sometime (later)…was Christianized as a date to celebrate the birth of the Son of Light.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Dr. William Gutsch, chairman of the American Museum of Natural History—Hayden Planetarium, further confirmed the original name of Christmas with this quote on December 18, 1989, in a Westchester, New York, newspaper, <i>The Reporter Dispatch</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">“The early Romans were not celebrating Christmas but rather <i>a pagan feast called the Saturnalia</i>. It occurred each year around the beginning of winter, or the winter solstice. This was the time when the sun had taken its lowest path across the sky and the days were beginning to lengthen, thus assuring another season of growth.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">“If many of the trappings of the Saturnalia, however, seem to parallel what so many of us do today, <i>we can see where we borrowed…our holiday traditions</i>. And indeed, it has been suggested that while Christ was most likely <i>not born in late December</i>, the early Christians—then still an outlawed sect—moved Christmas to the time of the Saturnalia to draw as little attention as possible to themselves while they celebrated their own holiday.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The Saturnalia, of course, celebrated Saturn—the fire god. Saturn was the god of sowing (planting) because heat from the sun was required to allow for planting and growth of crops. He was also worshipped in this dead-of-winter festival so that he would come back (he <i>was</i> the “sun”) and warm the earth again so that spring planting could occur. The planet Saturn was later named after him because, among all of the planets, with its rings and bright red color, it best represented the god of fire!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Virtually every civilization has a fire/sun god. The Egyptians (and sometimes Romans) called him Vulcan. The Greeks named him Kronos, as did the Phoenicians—but they also called him Saturn. The Babylonians called him Tammuz (as Nimrod, resurrected in the person of his son), Molech or Baal (as did the Druids). These were all simply the various names for <i>Nimrod</i>. Nimrod was considered the father of all the Babylonian gods.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Child Sacrifice<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Notice this horrible practice associated with the worship of the fire god (Nimrod, Saturn, Kronos, Molech and Baal) in the following quote from <i>The Two Babylons</i>, Alexander Hislop, page 231:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">“Now, this is in exact accordance with the character of the Great Head of the system of fire-worship. <i>Nimrod</i>, as the representative of the devouring fire to which human victims, and especially children, were offered in sacrifice, was regarded as the great child-devourer…he was, of course, <i>the actual father of all the Babylonian gods</i>; and, therefore, in that character he was afterwards universally regarded. As the <i>Father of the gods</i>, he was, as we have seen, called <i>Kronos</i>; and every one knows that the classical story of Kronos was just this, that, ‘he devoured his sons as soon as they were born.’ (<i>Lempriere Classical Dictionary</i>, ‘Saturn.’)…This legend has a further and deeper meaning; but, as applied to <i>Nimrod</i>, or ‘The Horned One,’ it just refers to the fact, that, <i>as the representative of Moloch or Baal</i>, infants were the most acceptable offerings at his altar. We have ample and melancholy evidence on this subject from the records of antiquity. ‘The <i>Phoenicians</i>,’ says Eusebius, ‘every year sacrificed their beloved and only-begotten children to <i>Kronos or Saturn.</i>’”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">But why was human sacrifice such a key to the worship of this terrible god? What possible good could human beings think they saw in slaughtering their own children? Continuing: “…he who approached the <i>fire would receive a light from divinity</i>” and “<i>through divine fire</i> all the stains produced by generations could be purged away.” Therefore, “children were made to pass through the fire unto Molech” (Jer. 32:35).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">As incredible as it seems, deceived human beings actually believed they were pleasing their “god” by sacrificing their own innocent little children to him. They believed fire purified them from original sin. The pagan doctrine of spending time in purgatory to purge the soul from all sin derives from this belief!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Who Was Nimrod?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">We must now look more closely at who this biblical figure, Nimrod, was. We have already seen him as one of history’s original false gods, but what else can be learned?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Genesis 10:9 says of Nimrod, “He was a mighty hunter before [in place of] the Lord.” He actually tried to replace God.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The famous Jewish historian, Josephus, records in <i>Josephus Antiquities</i> important evidence of Nimrod’s role in the post-flood world. Notice: “He also gradually changed the government into tyranny…He [Nimrod] also said he would be revenged on God, if He should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach…Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God” (Bk. I, Ch. IV, sec. 2, 3).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Under many names, mankind’s earliest and perhaps greatest rebel has been worshipped throughout false religion. Ancient Israel kept falling into serving the many false gods that Nimrod represented.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Ezekiel 8:13-14 records a picture of the women of Israel “weeping for Tammuz.” This Tammuz (the god of fire) was considered to be Nimrod and the etymology of the word itself is fascinating. <i>Tam </i>means “to make perfect” and <i>muz</i> “fire.” The meaning is clear in light of what we have already learned. Incidentally, in the Iraqi-Kuwaiti Desert Storm War, Saddam Hussein even named one of his missiles the “Tammuz.” He certainly understood that its meaning included fire.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Burned to Molech<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Let’s see how God’s people, Israel, worshipped Baal/Molech once they had departed from the true God: “And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, <i>to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech</i>; which I commanded them not, neither came it into My mind, that they should do this abomination…” (Jer. 32:35).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Notice that God Himself says that such horrible abominations never even entered His mind: “They have built also the high places of Baal, <i>to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal</i>, which I commanded not, nor spoke it, neither came it into My mind: Therefore, behold, the days come, says the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter” (Jer. 19:5). Verse 6 ties the valley of Tophet or Hinnom to this practice. Jeremiah 7:31 connects Tophet and Hinnom to child sacrifice. <i>Tophet</i> means “the drum.” Drums were played to drown the screams of victims in the flames.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Notice this quote from <i>Paradise Lost</i>, by John Milton, about the terrible god Molech: “First <i>Moloch</i>, horrid king besmear’d with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents tears, Though, for the noyse of Drums and Timbrels loud Their children’s cries unheard, that <i>passed through fire</i> To his grim Idol.” Of course, everyone will say that they do not sacrifice their children to Molech today, but read on.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">In the New Testament, the martyr Stephen was stoned to death, at least partly, because he indicted his listeners for the worship of this evil idol (Acts 7:43).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">When righteous King Josiah came to the throne, as king of Judah, he destroyed the altars in the Valley of Tophet (or Hinnom—the very same valley Christ likened to “gehenna” fire in Mark 9:43-49) soon after coming to power. He realized the great evil of the practices taking place there.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The Druids and Human Sacrifice<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Many people have heard of the Druids. Few know who and what they were. We will refer to them later and tie them to other well-known Christmas practices. We must first establish their historic role in human sacrifice.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Julius Caesar is the best-known source of information about the Druids. This comes from the <i>Encyclopedia Britannica. </i>This quote, under “<i>Druids</i>,” clearly explains who they were: “Druids, the learned class among the ancient Celts, whose name means <i>Knowing (or Finding) the Oak Tree</i>. They seem to have frequented Oak forests and acted as<i> priests</i>,<i> teachers and judges</i>. The earliest known records of the Druids come from the 3rd century [B.C.]…Druids <i>took charge of public and private sacrifices</i>, and many young men went to them for instruction. They judged all public and private quarrels and decreed the penalty…<i>The Druids principle doctrine was that the soul was immortal</i>…(they) offered human victims for those who were gravely sick or in danger of death in battle. Huge wickerwork images were <i>filled with living men and then burned</i>; although the Druids chose criminals by preference, they <i>sacrificed innocent victims</i> if necessary.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The Old Testament is filled with God’s condemnation of Israel for practicing the customs of the nations around them—and we are gathering important facts revealing a shocking picture.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The Role of Cannibalism<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Another truth about the origin of Christmas springs from the modern word <i>cannibal</i>. This practice has its roots in a prime function of all priests of Baal. Keep in mind that the Hebrew word for priest is <i>Cahn</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Consider the following quote from <i>The Two Babylons</i>, by Alexander Hislop, page 232: “And it was a principle of the Mosaic law, a principle no doubt derived from the patriarchal faith, that the priest must partake of whatever was offered as a sin-offering (Numbers xviii. 9, 10). Hence, the priests of Nimrod or Baal were necessarily required to eat of the human sacrifices; and thus it has come to pass that ‘Cahna-Bal,’ the ‘Priest of Baal,’ is the established word in our own tongue for a devourer of human flesh.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The reality of this can be lost on no one! It is also true that most civilizations have a tradition that has involved cannibalism. Notice this statement from <i>The New York Times</i>, “What Is the Meaning of Cannibalism?” by Erik Eckholm: “Cannibalism has once fascinated and repelled virtually every known society, including those said to have practiced it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">This same article went on to show that most civilizations also attached divine significance to its practice.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">What About the Santa Myth?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Have you considered that <i>you</i> could also be burning, even sacrificing, your children today (though in a different way) in your practice of Christmas, while you may be trying to sincerely “focus on Christ”?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Parents reason that they <i>owe</i> the whole Christmas myth to their children! Christmas traditions are focused primarily on kids, and they are certainly the center of most of what happens. I know because I kept seventeen Christmases. My older sister and younger brother and I were the recipients of much and the givers of very little on that day—and it all started with the Santa Claus lie.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Some years ago, a priest in New Jersey told his Sunday school class that Santa was a myth. The outrage from parents and his supervisors was swift. He had “killed Santa!” He had “destroyed family tradition!” He had “usurped family authority,” the article continued. He was officially censored by his superiors for being “overzealous and insensitive.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">His crime? He told the truth!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">According to <i>Langer’s Encyclopedia of World History</i>, (article “Santa”), “Santa” was a common name for Nimrod throughout Asia Minor. This was also the same fire god who came down the chimneys of the ancient pagans and the same fire god to whom infants were burned and eaten in human sacrifice among those who were once God’s people.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Today Santa Claus comes from “Saint Nicholas.” Washington Irving, in 1809, is responsible for remaking the original old, stern bishop of this same name into the new “jolly St. Nick” in his <i>Knickerbocker History of New York</i>. (Most of the rest of America’s Christmas traditions are even more recent than this.) “Old Nick” has long been recognized as a term for the devil.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">In Revelation 2:6 and 15, we read about a “doctrine of the Nicolaitanes,” which Christ twice tells His Church “[He] hates.” Let’s analyze the word <i>Nicolaitane</i>. It means “follower of Nicholas.” <i>Nikos</i> means “conqueror, destroyer.” <i>Laos </i>means, “people.” Nicolaitanes, then, are people who follow the conqueror or destroyer—Nimrod. If you have believed that following Christmas is an innocent Christian custom, let this truth sink in!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Is It Scriptural to Exchange Gifts?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Merchants regularly report that over 60% of their annual retail sales occur during the Christmas shopping season. This represents a tremendous amount of gift buying. Most today believe that gift-giving comes from the Bible example of the “three wise men” (the Bible gives no number) presenting gifts to Christ. Is this true? Where <i>did</i> exchanging gifts come from, and what does God’s Word say about it?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The <i>Bibliotheca Sacra</i> states, “The interchange of presents between friends is a like characteristic of Christmas and the Saturnalia, and <i>must have been adopted by Christians from the pagans</i>, as the admonition of Tertullian plainly shows” (Vol. 12, pp. 153-155).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Like every other aspect of Christmas, the shocking truth is that even this supposed Christian custom does <i>not</i> come from the Bible. It is an irony that people love to believe they are following the custom of the wise men giving to Christ, when actually they are giving almost exclusively<i> to each other!</i> What hypocrisy! Christ is completely forgotten.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The Bible actually teaches that Christians should not keep birthdays. Numerous scriptures make this principle clear. (Read our article “Are Birthday Celebrations <i>Christian</i>?”) However, what if you went to a birthday party that had been prepared for you and everybody gave gifts to each other and you were left out? The idea is ridiculous! If this happened, you would say that people were being <i>selfish</i> and forgetting you. In fact, most people give to others on Christmas merely because they<i> expect to receive gifts themselves!</i><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Let’s briefly return to the “wise men” who gave gifts to Christ. The scripture describing this is Matthew 2:1-11: “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is He that is born <i>King of the Jews?</i>…And when they were come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down, and worshipped Him: <i>and when they had opened their treasures</i>, they presented unto Him <i>gifts</i>; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">It is commonly supposed that these were birthday presents for “baby Jesus.” But is this what the Bible actually says? Absolutely not! First, it is important to note that they <i>did</i> give the gifts to Jesus. They did not stand in His presence and exchange gifts among themselves or give them to others. The gifts were “presented <i>unto Him</i>.” Also, they arrived well after His “birthday.” This is another reason these could not have been “birthday presents.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">A long-standing, ancient custom of the East was to present gifts when coming before a king. These men understood they were in the presence of the “King of the Jews.” The Bible carries many examples of people sending gifts to kings or presenting them upon arrival into their presence. This custom is common today when ambassadors or others come into the presence of a world leader.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Finally, notice what the <i>Adam Clarke Commentary</i>, volume 5, page 46, states about what really happened on this occasion: “Verse 11. <i>They presented unto him gifts</i>. The people of the east never approach the presence of kings and great personages, without a <i>present</i> in their hands. This custom is often noticed in the Old Testament, and still prevails in the east, and in some of the newly discovered South Seas Islands.” Gifts were customarily presented to kings.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">What could be more plain?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The Origin of the Christmas Tree<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">No booklet about Christmas is complete without some explanation of the “Christmas tree.” We have touched on it without directly focusing on it. The modern Christmas tree originated in Germany. But the Germans got it from the Romans, who got it from the Babylonians and the Egyptians.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The following demonstrates what the Babylonians believe about the origin of the Christmas tree: “An old Babylonish fable told of <i>an evergreen tree which sprang out of a dead tree stump</i>. The old stump symbolized the dead Nimrod, the new evergreen tree symbolized that Nimrod had come to life again in Tammuz! Among the Druids the <i>oak</i> was sacred, among the Egyptians it was the palm, and <i>in Rome it was the fir</i>, which was decorated with red berries during the Saturnalia!” (Walsh, <i>Curiosities of Popular Customs</i>, p. 242).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Frederick J. Haskin’s <i>Answers to Questions </i>states, “The Christmas tree is from Egypt, and its origin dates from a period long anterior to the Christian Era.” Did you know this—that the Christmas tree <i>long preceded</i> Christianity?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Most aspects of Christmas are not referred to in the Bible. Of course, the reason is that they are not from God—they are not part of the way He wants people to worship Him. The Christmas tree, however, is directly mentioned in the Bible! Turn to Jeremiah 10:2-5, “Thus says the Lord, <i>Learn not the way of the heathen</i>…For the customs of the people are vain: for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">This plain description of the modern Christmas tree is clear. God directly refers to it as “the way of the heathen.” Just as directly, He commands His people to “learn not the way of the heathen,” calling these customs “vain.” Verse 23 adds a remarkable and powerful statement: “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walks <i>to direct his </i>[own] <i>steps</i>.” God must teach people how to live. Man simply cannot figure out God’s ways for himself.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">There is no room in Jeremiah 10 to believe, as some have tried to suggest, that because these trees are powerless of themselves, it is not really <i>forbidden</i> to have a Christmas tree. God condemns the putting up of pagan (Christmas) trees with this plain Bible command!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The Source of Holly Wreaths, Yule Logs and Mistletoe<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The <i>Encyclopedia Americana</i> states, “The holly, the mistletoe, the Yule log…are relics of pre-Christian times.” In other words, paganism! The Yule log was commonly used in a rite of Teutonic nature worship.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Frederick Haskin further states, “The use of the <i>Christmas wreath</i> is believed by authorities to be <i>traceable to the pagan custom</i> of decorating buildings and places of worship at the feast which took place at the same time as our Christmas.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The <i>Encyclopedia Britannica</i>, under “Celastrales,” exposes the origin of the holly wreath: “European pagans brought holly sprays into their homes, offering them to the fairy people of the forests as refuges from the harsh winter weather. During the<i> Saturnalia</i>, the Roman winter festival, <i>branches of holly </i>were exchanged as tokens of friendship. The earliest Roman Christians apparently used holly as a decoration at the Christmas season.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">There are dozens of different types of holly. Virtually all of them come in <i>male and female varieties</i>—such as “Blue Prince and Blue Princess” or “Blue Boy and Blue Girl” or “China Boy and China Girl.” Female holly plants cannot have berries unless a nearby male plant pollinates them. It is easy to see why the holly wreath found its way into pagan rituals as a token of friendship and fertility!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Christmas is incomplete to many unless it involves “kissing under the mistletoe.” This pagan custom was natural on a night that involved much revelry done in the spirit of drunken orgies. Just like today, this “kissing” usually occurred at the beginning of the Saturnalia/Christmas celebration. I will never forget having to always kiss my friends’ mothers <i>upon entering each of their houses every Christmas</i>. It was the first thing that we did. I hated it—but it was something I “had to do”! Mistletoe was considered to have special powers of healing for those who “reveled” under it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The <i>Encyclopedia Britannica</i>, under “Santalales,” states, “The European mistletoe is thought to have had special ritual significance in Druidical ceremonies and lives in folklore today, its special status as the Christmas mistletoe having come from Anglo-Saxon times.” Mistletoe is a parasite that lives on oak trees. (Recall that the Druids worshipped in oak tree groves.) The ancient Celtics (associated with the Druids) used to give mistletoe as an herbal remedy to barren animals to make them <i>fertile</i>. It is still referred to as <i>“all healer”</i> in Celtic.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Like mistletoe, holly berries were also thought to be sacred to the sun god. The original “sun log” came to be called the yule log. “Yule” simply means “wheel,” which has long been a pagan representation of the sun. No wonder people today commonly speak of the “sacred yule-tide season.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Worship of the True God Mixed with False Practices<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The modern term for merging false pagan customs with the worship of the true God is called <i>syncretism</i>. Anyone who did this in ancient Israel was put to death (Lev. 18:21, 29)! It was that serious!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">A fascinating look into how Israel thought and believed, in their own minds, that they were worshipping God as an entire nation, comes from II Kings 17:33: “They<i> feared the Lord</i>, and <i>served their own gods</i>, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from there.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Did you grasp this? Yes, they feared the true God while serving other gods. No wonder the very next verse (34) states that they really “fear NOT the Lord” according to the way God commanded. This is how God views what people are doing today—no matter what these people copying ancient pagan practices might think of their own actions!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Verse 30 says that all this had been learned from contact with “the men of Babylon” (among others), whose chief god, we will recall, was Nimrod (Baal or Molech)—who we now know were one and the same.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Notice how specific was God’s warning to Israel in Deuteronomy 12:29-31, and <i>why</i> He warned them! “When the Lord your God shall cut off the nations from before you…and you succeed them, and dwell in their land; Take heed to yourself that you be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before you; and that you <i>enquire not after their gods</i>, saying, <i>How did these nations serve their gods? Even so will I do likewise</i>. You shall not do so unto the Lord your God: for every abomination to the Lord, which He hates, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters have they burnt in the fire to their gods.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Many verses, similar to Deuteronomy 12, should be carefully studied. (See Exodus 34:10-17; 23:23-33; Leviticus 20:22-26; Deuteronomy 20:13-18, etc.) The true God knew that serving <i>other gods</i> always led to sacrificing children to them!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Deuteronomy 12:32 made clear that God does not want us to mix His ways with any false ways: “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: you shall not<i> add</i> thereto, nor<i> diminish</i> from it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">These are God’s plain words to all who say that they can mix the horrible customs of outright paganism with a supposed “focus on Christ.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Ancient Israel’s Pagan Practices in Modern Customs<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Deuteronomy 12:2-4 establishes an important context. God plainly says, “You shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which you shall possess <i>served their gods</i>, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and <i>under every green tree</i>: And you shall overthrow their altars…and burn <i>their groves</i> with fire…you shall not do so unto the Lord your God.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Notice God’s references to “every green tree” and “their groves.” There are at least ten similar verses throughout the Old Testament referring to “green trees” and their association with idolatry. Historians hold that the reference to the term “green” refers to green year-round—<i>evergreen </i>trees!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Once again, let’s more closely examine the actual history and origins of some of the Saturnalia customs still practiced today. Notice the following chilling quote from the <i>Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities</i>, “Oscilla” 3rd edition, volume II: “…all ranks devoted themselves to feasting and mirth, presents were exchanged among friends, and crowds thronged the streets, shouting ‘Lo Saturnalia.’ An offering was made beneath a decorated evergreen tree, according to the pagan poet, Virgil. <i>Figurines</i> and masks—called <i>‘oscilla’</i>—were hung on the tree, as are Christmas decorations today. History admits…there can be no doubt that we have in these <i>‘oscilla’ </i>a relic of <i>human sacrifice…</i>”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Doesn’t all of this sound familiar? Presents, singing in the streets, evergreen trees, decorations, offerings under the tree, merrymaking, feasting? They may <i>sound</i> wonderful, but they represent things that are truly abominable.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Modern oscilla look like chubby little “angels” when hanging on a tree. I placed these little “angel babies” on our tree, myself, as a small child. At least I <i>thought</i> they were angel babies. How wrong I was! Do you think any of your friends realize what they really represent? Of course not—but that does not make it any less serious or less wrong in God’s eyes!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Outright Paganism Blended into the Church<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">One additional source demonstrates how this all came to be a heritage practiced so “innocently” by millions—yet far from innocent in God’s sight. Now read the following quote from <i>Encyclopedia Britannica</i>, 15th edition, volume 10, pages 1062-3: “Christianity…by a complex and gradual process…became the official religion of the [Roman] empire.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">“For a time, coins and other monuments continued to link Christian doctrines with worship of the sun, to which Constantine had been addicted previously. But even when this phase came to an end, Roman paganism continued to exert other, permanent influences, great and small…The ecclesiastical calendar retains numerous remnants of pre-Christian festivals, notably Christmas, which blends elements including both the feast of the<i> Saturnalia</i> and the birthday of Mithra. But, most of all, the mainstream of <i>Western Christianity owed ancient Rome the firm discipline that gave it stability and shape</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">An authority as reputable as the <i>Encyclopedia Britannica </i>actually acknowledges, for any willing to see, that the Saturnalia and ancient Rome are what defined the “discipline…stability and shape” of Western Christianity!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">This is a truly stunning admission!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The next powerful quote reveals how this idolatrous, pagan festival slipped into the “Christian” world. It is from the <i>New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge</i>, under “Christmas”:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">“How much the date of the festival depended upon the pagan Brumalia (December 25) following the Saturnalia (Dec. 17-24), and celebrating the shortest day of the year and the ‘new sun’…cannot be accurately determined. The pagan Saturnalia and Brumalia <i>were too deeply entrenched in popular custom to be set aside by Christian influence</i>…The pagan festival with its riot and merry-making was so popular that Christians were glad of an excuse to continue its celebration with little change in spirit and in manner. Christian preachers of the West and the Near East protested against the unseemly frivolity with which Christ’s birthday was celebrated, while Christians of Mesopotamia accused their Western brethren of<i> idolatry and sun worship for adopting as Christian this pagan festival</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">One additional source reveals how the Roman church absorbed Christmas into an official celebration. The <i>Encyclopedia Britannica</i>, 1946 edition, states, “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the church…Certain Latins, as early as 354, may have transferred the birthday from January 6th to <i>December 25</i>, which was then<i> a Mithraic feast</i>…<i>or birthday of the unconquered SUN</i>…The Syrians and Armenians, who clung to January 6th, accused the Romans of sun worship and idolatry, contending…that the feast of December 25th, had been invented by disciples of Cerinthus…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Thus, a pagan festival, celebrated long before Christ’s birth, found its way into recognized Christianity.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Did you know that even the seventeenth century Puritans of New England understood how wrong Christmas was? They actually banned its observance by law, in 1659, throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Fines and imprisonment could result from being found keeping it. It was almost 200 years (1856) before people stopped working on Christmas in Boston. The Puritans knew its roots and labeled it “heathen, papist idolatry.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Those Who “Change Times and Laws”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The prophet Daniel (7:8) speaks of a “little horn,” which (7:25) “shall speak great words against the Most High…and think to change times and laws.” This little horn is a great religious authority that attempts to superimpose its <i>own</i> view of dates and celebrations, on an unsuspecting world, in place of <i>God’s</i> plain instruction.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The Hebrew word translated “change” means to “transform, alter or set.” The word translated “times” means “appointed occasions, seasons or times.” The Hebrew word translated “laws” means “decrees or laws of God.” When put together, this phrase refers to an authority that attempts to “transform appointed occasions and seasons within the Law of God.” Certainly, Christmas is a great example of how this has been done. God’s instructions have been replaced with religious traditions of men.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The following quote reveals how this has happened. It also comes from the <i>Encyclopedia Britannica</i>, under “Christianity”: “Thus, the Easter liturgy has been developed more highly in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Christmas liturgy more highly in the Roman Catholic Church…The Christian calendar is the most widely disseminated Christian institution. The seven-day week and the rhythm of the Christian festivals have been accepted even by most of the non-Christian countries. Despite energetic attempts at the introduction of a sliding work week, the seven-day week with work-free Sunday could not be eliminated even in Communist states with an Atheist world view. Even in Atheistic circles and organizations throughout the world, Christian holidays enjoy an undisputed popularity as work-free days…<i>especially Christmas</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Truly, it has been the “ecclesiastical politicians,” referred to earlier, who have sought to impose the modern “Christian” calendar on an unknowing world. It is these leaders who <i>have </i>“thought to change times and laws.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The Dangerous Power of Lies<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">One of Satan’s names is <i>Destroyer</i> (Rev. 9:11). Nimrod/Saturn/Molech/Baal, like Satan, is the fire god who destroys and devours little children.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The real Jesus Christ was <i>never</i> in and <i>never will be</i> in Christmas! He cannot be put back into where He has never been. But the “god of this world,” Satan (II Cor. 4:4), has <i>always</i> been in Christmas. He is its author!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The true God commands that we “must worship Him in spirit and in <i>truth</i>” (John 4:23-24). This does not mesh with the great Christmas and Santa Claus <i>lies</i> that all children so willingly believe.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">I Timothy 4:2 warns of those “speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” Parents can “burn” their own children, to the point of searing them, with the Christmas deception and lie!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">There is no “safety in numbers” in this world for those who keep Christmas, because Satan, who is called “the father of lies” and “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), has “deceived the <i>whole</i> world” (Rev. 12:9)! Turn to this verse and read it. Then recognize that Christmas is certainly a testimony to that great deception.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">But Christ refers to His Church as a “little flock” (Luke 12:32). Many other verses show this. This Church does not have the large numbers of the respected, established brands of the Christianity of this world.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">“Another Jesus”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">There is another problem with the idea of “putting Christ back in Christmas”—and it is big! The “Jesus” that is the focus of this season is not the <i>true</i> Jesus Christ of the Bible!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Most have been taught that there is only one Jesus Christ. But God’s Word speaks of a counterfeit, and this substitute Christ is identifiable in history. The proof? The apostle Paul warned of “another Jesus.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Grasp what is at stake here!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">First, consider Paul’s entire introduction as he sets the stage for the warning that follows: “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent [Satan] beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (II Cor. 11:3).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Now for the actual warning in the next verse: “For if he that comes preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive <i>another spirit</i>, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him” (II Cor. 11:4). The Corinthians seemed to “bear with this” without much resistance.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Paul, under inspiration of the <i>true</i> Jesus Christ of the Bible, was moved to record the peril of unwittingly following “another Jesus.” Consider. Most have probably never remotely considered the idea of a false Jesus for even a moment—that there is such a thing as a wrong, different and “false Christ” (Matt. 24:23-24)— called “another Jesus.” In the past, this “Jesus” has even corrupted the thinking of true Christians. This much is plain. But the “subtilty” of <i>how</i> this can happen, and <i>how</i> it has occurred in history, is so deceptive— so seductive— that even true Christians can unknowingly slip into worshipping this so- called Jesus. This is what was happening to the Corinthians.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">People can worship in ways that represent things that are far different than what they sincerely believe or intend. Bible “believers” today can think that they are worshipping the true Savior when they are really worshipping a false savior—another Jesus! The entirety of traditional Christianity is actually worshipping Nimrod/Saturn/Molech/Baal. The modern mother/child “Mary/Jesus” emphasis, including the worshipful adoration of Mary by millions, is a parallel with Nimrod and his mother, Semiramis, that cannot be missed.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Here is the point of what is being explained. Many speak of “putting Christ back into Christmas.” This is heard every year from thousands of pulpits and elsewhere. But the true Christ was never there! Just as a person cannot go back into a room that he had never entered, Jesus Christ cannot be “put back” into an event that He has never been in, and that He in fact hates! (Again, see Mark 7:7.) The Jesus that these preachers and religionists have in mind is another Christ, one with another gospel, another spirit—the Christmas spirit!—bringing totally different doctrines and teachings.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Can you see the connection?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">What Should You Do?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Finally, let’s examine what God told His people they should do and the way they ought to teach their children.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Recall Jeremiah 7:31, where God condemned Israel for burning their children in the Valley of Tophet. Eight verses earlier (vs. 23-24), God had made plain what He requires: “But this thing <i>commanded</i> I them, saying, <i>Obey My voice</i>, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, <i>that it may be well unto you</i>. But they hearkened not…but walked…in the imagination of their evil heart…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Human beings do not want to obey God (Rom. 8:7). They would rather follow their own “imagination.” They do not understand that God wants their lives to go “well.” He wants happiness, joy and blessings to flow into people’s lives. All these are the results of obeying Him.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">God inspired Moses to warn parents of the grave responsibility that they have in what and how they teach their children. Notice His instruction in Deuteronomy 6:1, 6-7, 20-21, 25: “Now these are the <i>commandments</i>…which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you go to possess it…And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart: And you shall<i> teach them diligently unto your children</i>, and shall <i>talk of them</i> when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up…<i>And when your son asks you </i>in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord our God has commanded you? Then you shall say unto your son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand…And it shall be our righteousness, <i>if we observe to do all these commandments </i>before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">God took Israel out of Egypt—from slavery—out of the customs of the world around them and revealed His Law to them. He does not want His people going back to the traditions, customs and ways from which He has called them.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">When all of the interconnected traditions, filled with the symbolism of worshipping an ancient pagan, humanly devised god, are taught, this is not worshipping the true Creator.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:4"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">We Have not Known that Christmas is of Babylon<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Jesus said twice, in Matthew 7:16 and 20, that “you shall know them by their fruits.” Everything that people say or do, good or bad, has fruits. The <i>fruits</i> of Christmas are terrible. This season leads the entire year in adultery, loneliness, jealousy, drunkenness and drunk driving, family arguments (and worse), and accumulation of debt that often lasts until March. This problem is so significant that almost all churches typically report that their incomes—how ironic—<i>drop</i> during this period as people “recover” from all their spending<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>lightbreakforthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04462882439597173650noreply@blogger.com0