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The TRUTH about CHRISTMAS
Let me start this by saying we celebrate Christ and the
birth of Christ.
PLEASE NOTE:
We do not confuse the papal mass of Christ with the
Birth of Christ, and neither do we celebrate Christmas in the format of
Christmas being the date of Christ’s birth or the origin and meaning of the
name of Christmas.
We do remember the death and burial of our Lord
Jesus Christ and the Baptism of New Life.
In regard to the birth of our Messiah – we do take
this time and Worship the Lord God all mighty who gave us His Son to die on a
cross for our sins’. This is the only
reason we will come together and enjoy a meal around the table.
We need to be aware that the enemy of our soul will
try to confuse us in the TRUTH will lies that are close and parallel to the
TRUTH. The Word of God says, the even it
where possible the elect could be deceived.
It is the prayer of my heart that you are blessed
over this festive season and that you make this a time of worshiping the Lord
God almighty. He did send His Son to
earth to be born of a virgin, take on humanity, die on a cross and rise from
the dead.
We need to be aware of the TRUTH and take note that
from the very beginning of time the enemy had a strategy to twist the TRUTH.
The Word of God is TRUTH and the TRUTH will set you
free. I pray that this year the Lord
will anoint you and bless you and keep you in all TRUTH.
May God bless you in this teaching as you choose to
WORSHIP GOD and not the festive season.
What is Christmas and how does the general public
celebrate this occasion? Christmas is a day that is shared and
celebrated by many religions and has an effect on the entire world. To
many, it is a time of giving gifts, parties and feasting. Christmas is
also seen as a holiday that unifies almost all of professing Christendom.
The spirit of Christmas causes people to decorate their homes and churches, cut
down trees and bring them into their homes, decking them with silver, gold and
tinsel. Many families stack their gifts under the Christmas tree and wait
for the 25 of December to open the gifts.
Singing around the decorated tree, kissing under the mistletoe and
holly, and attending a late night service or midnight mass are all part of the
ritual that is done under the Name of Christmas. To many professing Christians
it is a time to come together and remember the birth of Jesus Christ and at the
same time to participate in all the above festivities.
What is the meaning of Christmas and
where did the customs and traditions originate from?
The truth is that the customs of Christmas pre-date
the birth of Jesus Christ, and a brief study of this would reveal that
Christmas in our day is a collection of traditions and practices taken from
many cultures and nations.
The date of December 25th comes from
Witches and other pagans regarded the red holly as a symbol of the menstrual
blood of the queen of heaven, also known as Diana. The holly wood was
used by witches to make wands. The white berries of mistletoe were
believed by pagans to represent droplets of the semen of the sun god. Both
holly and mistletoe were hung in doorways of temples and homes to invoke powers
of fertility in those who stood beneath and kissed, causing the spirits of the
god and goddess to enter them.
These
customs transcended the borders of
How did all of these customs find their
way into contemporary Christianity, ranging from Catholicism to Protestantism
to fundamentalist churches?
The word "Christmas"
itself reveals who married paganism to Christianity.
The word Christmas is a combination of the words Christ and
In short, the Romish church told all of these pagan
cultures, "Bring your gods, goddesses, rituals and rites, and we will
assign Christian sounding titles and names to them."
When
Martin Luther started the reformation on October 31st, 1517, other reformers
followed his lead, and many of them took with them the paganism that was so
firmly imbedded in
In
The Puritans in
We are now seeing ever-increasing celebrating of Christmas, or the green tree (Yule), as we draw closer to
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Jeremiah 10:2-4,
"Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of
the heathen; and be not dismayed at the signs of
heaven. For the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are
vain. For one cutteth 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.”
There
is no indication whatsoever that Christ was born on the 25th of December.
The cold months in
Long before the birth of Christ a
festival was observed annually by heathen nations on 24 and 25 December.
About 3000 - 2600 BC the city of
For this crime Nimrod was put to death. Semiramis seized power and
announced that Tammuz was the Incarnation of his father Nimrod.
As the cult developed, Semiramis gained
various titles such as: * The Queen of Heaven¹, and * The Mother of God.¹ While Nimrod / Tammuz was worshipped as * The
Sungod.¹ (See Alexander Hislop`s book, THE TWO BABYLONS.) This cult influenced all
other pagan religions in terms of a * mother-goddess whose husband was *
resurrected¹ in his son, bringing new life.¹
Semiramis instituted a day on which her son Tammuz,
later known as Baal, had to be worshipped. On
the day of his birth, at midnight on the 24th of December, the feast
started. He was also known as the sungod, in Latin Sol Invictus.
Semiramis and her son became the pattern of the
³...MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS
AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.², as seen in Revelations 17:5.
³ "Then he brought me to the
door of the gate of the Lord¹s house which was toward the north; and, behold,
there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then
said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of
man? Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see
greater abomination than these. And he brought me into the inner court of
the LORD`s house, and, behold, at the door of the
temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty
men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and they worshipped the
sun toward the east. Then he said unto me, Hast
thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing unto the house of
The pagan name of this festival of 24 and 25 December was * The Solar
Feast of Natalia Invicti¹ (The nativity of the
unconquered sun.) The winter festival was very popular in ancient times:
In
In Pagan Rome it was known as * The Feast of Saturn.¹
It lasted five days; drunkenness, revelry and
indulgence characterized this feast. A general feeling of goodwill
prevailed amongst the population. The practice of giving presents was
well established. Fir trees, carried in to decorate the houses, were
adorned with golden balls that represented the god they served: Sol: The Sun.
Scandinavians believed that the god Odin bestowed special gifts at
Yuletide to those who approached his sacred fir tree.
Even in
It is admitted by the most learned scholars and writers that within the
Christian church no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third
century. And not till the fourth century was well advanced, did it gain
much observance as a Christian festival within the Roman Catholic church.
The Catholic encyclopedia states: * Christmas was not
among the earliest festivals of the Church.¹
Tertullian, writing in the middle of the third
century, lamented the fact that Christians were beginning to observe heathen
customs on this day. He said: * Gifts are carried to and fro, presents
are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar.¹
Augustine denounced the heretical identification of Christ with Sol, that Christians were beginning to make in his day.
Pope Leo 1 bitterly reproved solar survivals: * Christians, on the very
doorstep of the Apostle's bastion, turning to adore the rising sun.¹
By the fifth century, it was ordered that the birth of Christ be forever
observed on 25 December, even though this was the day of
the old Roman feast of the birth of Sol, one of the names of the sun-god!
The festival of Christmas (Christ-Mass)
probably became accepted within Christianity when, in AD 366, the Babylonian
religion became an official part of the doctrine of the Roman Catholic
Church... This was done for a reason: When beliefs are held by a people for
centuries, they are not easily forsaken. So Roman Church leaders also
reasoned that if people would be allowed to hold their ideas about a
mother-goddess, and a winter birth-festival, and if this could be mixed into
Christianity with substituted names, the Church would gain more converts.
The Catholic encyclopedia says: * The well-known
Solar feast, celebrated on 25 December, has a strong claim on the
responsibility for our December date.¹
We need not shrink from admitting that [current Christmas practices] were
commonly employed in pagan worship... [and that all
pagan artifacts/relics ] are naturally at the service
of universal religious institutions... Even pagan feasts
may be ³baptized². (Catholic Encyclopedia,
Vol.11, p 90)
It
is common knowledge,¹ says one writer, * that much of our association with the
Christmas season - the holidays (Holy-days), the giving of presents, and the
general feeling of geniality - is but the inheritance from the Roman winter
festival of the Saturnalia...
survivals of paganism.¹
Catholic scholars recognize that their church developed from a mixture of
paganism and Christianity. From their point of view, these things were triumphs
for Christianity, because the church was able to Christianize pagan practices.
It is interesting to see that nowhere in Scripture are we commanded by either the Lord Jesus, the Apostles or even the prophets, to
commemorate the Lord's Birth. It is on the other hand commanded by the
Lord Jesus Himself that we should commemorate His death, as it is by His death
we received pardon from sin, not by His birth.
There are only 2 'sacraments' (ordinaces) that
Jesus commanded
-- The Holy Communion, a sign of His atonement for our sins,
-- The Baptism, a sign of the new life in Christ.
The facts are:
-- Jesus was born in
-- He was not born on the 25th of December!
-- He never gave us a command to celebrate His
birth!
-- Never is it commanded that we should give
each other presents because He was born!
-- We are told to celebrate His death and
resurrection!
-- His Birth was announced to only a few
shepherds in the field, not to all the people in
-- His Birth was known by its simplicity
and humbleness! (...only
because few were ready to welcome Him, and none were ready for His
mission.)
Charles H. Spurgeon on Christmas
We have no superstitious regard for times and
seasons. Certainly, we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement
called Christmas: first, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but
abhor it, whether it be said or sung in Latin or in English; and, secondly,
because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the
birthday of the Saviour; and, consequently, its observance is a
superstition, because not of divine authority. Superstition has fixed most
positively the day of our Saviour's birth, although there is no possibility of
discovering when it occurred. Fabricius gives a
catalogue of 136 different learned opinions upon the matter; and various divines
invent weighty arguments for advocating a date in every month of the year.
It was not till the middle of the third century that any part of the church
celebrated the nativity of our Lord, and it was not till very long after the
Western church had set the example that the Eastern adopted it. Because the day
is not known, therefore superstition has fixed it; while, since the death of
our Saviour might be determined with much certainty, therefore superstition
shifts the date of its observance every year.
Where is the method in the madness of the superstitious? Probably the fact is
that the holy days were arranged to fit in with the heathen festivals. We
venture to assert, that if there be any day in the year, of which we may be
pretty sure that it was not the day on which the Saviour was born, it is the
twenty-fifth of December.
From a sermon delivered on the
24th December, 1871 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle,
Keep your
focus on CHRIST as you choose to WORSHIP GOD this month and not worship the
festive season.