Christmas and the Colossian Heresy

I want to begin by sharing something about my life. I became a minister some 50 years ago. At that time, I've been able to serve in this way through so many decades. One of the things you never get tired of is when a new person comes into church, you start asking questions, you start seeing how God opens their mind to the truth. The delight that I have as they begin to see what they believed was wrong, and the truth that comes from God's Word. How many here would like to be spiritual teachers one day? How many would like to be spiritual teachers? Everybody should be. That's the business we're in here. We are all being trained to be servants. One day, priests and ministers in the world tomorrow, they'll be all kinds of people, and they'll be asking all kinds of questions of us. We have a concrete purpose when we come to services. It's not like other places where they're thinking they're going to heaven. Are you going to teach somebody in heaven? Oh, no, you made it. That's basically now enjoying just being in bliss up in heaven. We are training to be teachers and to understand how to teach God's Word. I think this is a good example today of taking a topic, and it's not mine. It's in God's Word, and it's all for you. So one day, I hope you will be able to use it much more and better than what I can ever do. But I want to go into what Enrique Vidal mentioned this afternoon. Have you heard enough jingle bells for the time being? Have you seen the people rushing madly, trying to get those last toys, and having to buy things that they wouldn't normally, to people who they hardly know sometimes? Should we be following along? Is this what God wants us to do? And how can we be sure? Again, when people are brought in the kingdom of God, they're going to have all kinds of beliefs. There's going to be a lot of people that survive all of the plagues and punishments that are going to descend upon this earth. And there might be 30 percent, at least, that will survive in the future. And there'll be Hindus and Buddhists and all kinds of different groups out there. And so, how do we explain what God's truths are? One of the wonderful statements in Scripture about God's inspired word is found in 2 Timothy 3, 16. 2 Timothy, if you want to ever answer, where do you see that the Bible is God's word? You turn to 2 Timothy 3, 16 and read the following thing. It says, all Scripture, that means the Old and the New Testament, is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the person of God, because it can be either man or woman, may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So, it's God's instruction manual. This is where we find what God's will is. You will never find it in any other book. You will never find wisdom in any other person unless it's based on God's word.

Now, notice that there are four benefits mentioned here. God's word has these four uses. First, it says it is profitable for doctrine. Doctrine means biblical teaching. This is what is being taught. The Bible is the textbook.

So, these are teaching biblical truths to others. Now, we have found 20 fundamental beliefs in the Bible. They constitute the first part of our Constitution, so that some person, one day on top, cannot just change arbitrarily what we believe. That happened back in 1995. And so, we made sure that this was not going to happen again. That all the power, legally and physically, would be in one person. So, we have a system of checks and balances in United to make sure that we don't depend on the righteousness of any one man, or of a group of man. Because the way it was set up, we have the entire ministry who are part of the General Conference of Elders. They are the ones who choose the Council of Elders. And the Council of Elders chooses the President and the Treasurer and the officials, which are the President, the Treasurer and the Secretary of the General Conference of Elders. And so, for us to have to change doctrine, you would have to have those 400 elders in the... They'd have to be a large majority, three-fourths, to be able to change any of those 20 fundamental beliefs. And we believe, through time, this system is going to protect the brethren. Because we have seen other men change doctrine when they're in charge, and basically nobody can do anything about it. So anyways, this is where we have the 20 major doctrinal truths. Secondly, the term reproof. It means rebuking or strongly pointing out error. It means refuting the adversaries' lies against the truth. So the Bible helps us to refute error. It not only teaches the truth, but also helps us to reveal falsehoods, how clever men can come up with different ideas. Thirdly, correction. And this shows us our faults. The Bible is described in James 1, 23 through 25 as a spiritual mirror. You have to look intently and then apply it. So it's a wonderful book that just teaches us, instructs us, inspires us, shows us. And there's virtually every situation which the Bible answers what we should do. And finally, it's an instruction in righteousness. It shows us how to obey God properly and the path for right living. So those are the four benefits of God's word mentioned here. And so today I plan to apply some of these benefits and cover the topic of Christmas and how the Apostle Paul dealt with the collage in heresy. So here we go to a letter where the people, the brethren, were being deceived by some that had come in, teaching them falsehood. And so here we have a case law, a way of dealing with this and living color. See, God didn't give us a Bible like an encyclopedia of 30 different volumes that you have to basically have a law degree or some type of PhD to understand it. No, He gave us typical cases. So here we can apply what was going on in Colossae and how it applies today to Christmas. So this is something that I, again, a little golden nugget. So if somebody asks you about Christmas one day, well, this is going to strengthen you more. And I discovered another gold nugget that I want to share with you. Just last night, as I was going over all things, I found another golden spiritual nugget to share with you. And I've never read it before, so you might be the first ones to know. So let's go to this topic. I'd like to focus on the second benefit, which is how to refute false teaching.

Not only instructing the truth, we're going to cover that later, but how do you refute false teachings?

This is strongly pointing out error. Refuting the adversaries lies against the truth. So what's wrong with Christmas? Here are seven reasons why we don't keep Christmas. You examine them, see if it makes sense to you or not. Again, it's from God's Word that we derive our teachings. And the first thing about Christmas is we have no instructions in the Bible to keep it. Can you find someplace? Can you find Christ saying, you are to now keep my birthday? And this is the day when you're supposed to keep my birthday. December the 25th would have been very obvious. Christ told us about keeping the Passover. He kept different feasts. So if Christ wanted it, he would have put it in God's Word. So he didn't. Neither did his apostles. So here we have the life of Christ, never mentioned, about to honor his day of birth.

And you see then, 35 years later, the 35 years of church history that we have in the book of Acts and in the letters of the apostles. And there's no instruction to keep Christ's birthday. Don't you think? The apostles could have said, well, church, this is now something that we're going to keep. And they had all the teaching from Christ, and Christ continued revealing more things. Why is Christ's birth not taught in Scripture? Instead, we see that Christ and his disciples instructed us to keep the biblical feasts. They all center on Christ and the future events to come. And Christ said, keep the Passover, and as long as you keep the Passover, then the Lord's coming is going to be celebrated. And that one day I'm going to celebrate it with you. That's why we keep it, because there's an instruction. Paul in the Corinthian church, the first Corinthians, he said about keeping the Passover. And later he gave instructions on that night that he was betrayed. You get together with the brethren, and you celebrate that Lord's Supper, the Passover.

So this is the right focus. That's the first reason. The second reason is that this idea that Christ was born on December 25th is a lie. It is not true. Notice what it tells us about... should we follow a lie? Just because other people follow it, does that make it okay in 1 John 2, verse 21? It says, I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, you know the truth, and that no lie is of the truth. No lie proceeds from the truth. You can't mix truth and lies together. Either you're keeping a lie, following a lie, or you're keeping a truth.

And from the Bible, you can prove Christ was not born on December 25th. The evidence is right there in the New Testament. Notice the third reason. Go to Luke chapter 2, and again, I hope you're good students. If I was giving you a test, I would ask you to explain each one of these reasons, because it would stay in your mind, and if you ever have to tell your children... Because one day, the young people, they're going to have children, they're going to ask about this, and you have other relatives, friends, they're going to ask you about it. In Luke chapter 2, verse 1, it says, And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be registered.

This census first took place while Carinius was governing Syria. So all of these are historical evidence. And we have Roman history. Basically, the Roman census took place about every 14 years or so. This was one of the times when it was sent out. It says, And so they made the trip. There were part of the ones that had to be registered. And they went to the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. And so they made the trip. They were part of the ones that had to be there, go before the Roman officials. And basically, this was more for tax purposes, and also to know how much the population had grown during that period of time. He said, So it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. The term inn is improperly translated. The term kataluma is used in Luke 22.11 and Luke 10.36. As Luke 22.11, it mentions as a guest room. And what happened was, since all of these ancestors, or descendants of David, had to come in, all of these homes got filled. And when Mary started giving birth, why they took her down to where the first floor usually is where they kept the animals, and they had a manger there. And it was much easier than to get people out of the other guest rooms they would have been having. So anyways, the point is that the Roman census was never done during winter time. It was cold in that area of Bethlehem, up on the hills. The temperatures would go below 32 degrees. And it was rainy. It was cold. And so what the Roman Caesars did was to have the pen, the census, during the fall. After the harvests, the roads were still dry. Everybody had a break. They didn't have to work because everything had been taken care of. And so it was in the fall. But not in midwinter. No Roman emperor would have been foolish enough to have a census at that time. That's the first proof that it was on December the 25th. Secondly, in Luke chapter 2 verse 8, it says, Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Again, the second proof is that shepherds did not keep their flocks out at night during the winter time. It was cold, rainy, many times freezing. Jerusalem and Bethlehem get snow during their winter. It's normal to have it there. They would bring them back, the sheep, into their folds, usually with a roof on top of them, and protect them. But here it showed that the shepherds didn't have a problem being there at night because during the fall was a good time for them to be out there. So from just these two pieces of evidence, you can see that December 25th was not the time.

And we go to the fifth reason. You can look this up nowadays. Kids don't have to have encyclopedias in their homes. They have Google. They have all of these. Just Google. Just go ahead and put down, when was Christmas first celebrated? Or where did Christmas come from? I looked at a couple of them. They're all very good. They will tell you that it was not celebrated during the time of Christ, the apostles, but about 300 years later. This is what I got from some of the encyclopedias. The first three centuries, it was not kept. It was only in 336 that the Emperor Constantine established Christmas in the Roman Empire. But it was again a time when he was a sun worshipper. Because he never said, well, I'll go along with the Christians, but I'm not going to leave my sun god behind. And he continued minting the coins with the sun god all throughout his life. And so he was the one that established it. It wasn't God. It wasn't Jesus Christ. It was this pagan emperor.

And then in 354, Pope Julius declared Christmas a holiday. So one of the popes declared it for the Catholic Church at that time. And from then on, it just got picked up by the Protestants as well. So it doesn't have a foundation that is based on God's truths.

The sixth reason is that the idea of Santa Claus, the Christmas tree, they're based on pagan ideas. Notice in Jeremiah 10. Jeremiah 10. I'll just read it real quickly. It says, verse 1. This is a good scripture. Remember Jeremiah 1, because it talks to you about the ancestor of the Christmas tree. Where did this idea? These were the sacred trees that people brought into their homes. It says, verse 1. Here, the word which the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord, do not learn the way of the Gentiles. You could use the term pagans. Do not be dismayed at the signs of Heavens, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them. You have to worry about the stars, and they can't affect you. For the custom of the peoples are futile. For one cuts a tree from the forest. The work of the hands of the workmen with the axe. They decorate it with silver and gold. They fasten it with nails and hammers, so that it will not couple. They are upright like a palm tree, and they cannot speak. And then it says, verse 8. But they are altogether dull-hearted and foolish. A wooden idol is a worthless doctrine. So the Bible says, don't use these to represent God or Christ, or the birth of Christ.

And the final is the connection with Babylonian religion. I'd like to read to you from a book called Passover Before Messiah and After. It says, according to the Sumerian history, and basically, archaeology has shown that the Sumerian civilization was the first one after the flood. And later, Abraham and others, but they were all from that area of Ur, and the Sumerians were the first ones. And they brought their pagan practices with them across the flood through at least one of Noah's sons and daughters.

We don't know who, but they already had their ideas. Ishtar, where you get the term Easter, was the wife of the Sumerian god, Tammuz. Both are spoken of in the Bible. Tammuz, in Ezekiel 8.14, where they're praying and adoring to Tammuz, and Ishtar, called Asturoth, and the queen of heaven, in Judges 2.13, 10.6, and Jeremiah 44.17. So these are the ancient gods, and that's why they have Tammuz, which is a type of a baby Jesus, the mother, and is taking care of them. This was all part of the Sumerian Babylonian, because from the Sumerians, the Babylonians lived in that whole area.

And we see that this system was going to be alive and well until the times of the end. Let's go to Revelation 17. Revelation 17. This is the false system. And notice what it is called. Revelation 17 verse 4 talks about the woman who was the religious system, writing the beast, which is the European beast, was arrayed in purple and scarlet. So this is a religion that is very rich. Purple and scarlet are the clothing of kings and priests, and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls.

So they're going to be arrayed, showing the riches that they have. Having in her hand a golden cup, just like they serve a golden cup to people, full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication, so false teachings. This is a cup that is spiritually poison. And yet, all the nations enjoy it. And on her forehead, a name was written. Where did she come from? Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. This is a church that has persecuted the true church for 2,000 years.

And she hasn't ended yet. She knows, especially the top leaders, where the truth is. And they want it stamped out. So this is a mixture of Christianity and paganism. And now, let's go to Colossians chapter 2. Because I mentioned to you, Paul was fighting something similar to what we have today as Christmas. Colossians chapter 2, verse 18 through 23, it explains here that some of the brethren were being deceived.

And in the church, we'll have these waves of different types of ideas that come in. Some people are just taken over by what they call the names of God movement. You have to have special names just to name God because if you don't, then you don't have a good relationship with Him.

We've had that where... and there are all kinds of special names they have. But the thing is, God wants us to know Him as Father. Abba. That's the term of a relationship. Now, He's also so much more than that. He has multiple names. And each one of those is one of His characteristics. So they shouldn't be excluded.

And continuing on, it says here in verse 18, it says, Let no one cheat you of your reward. Because some people are caught up in different doctrinal ideas. There's this one God movement where they say Jesus Christ wasn't really God and that has always been God.

And so they have a lower version of God the Son than God the Father. And it mentions that they were equal in power and glory. But that one, humiliated. It says in Philippians 2 that being God, He did not think grasping at that as something to hold on to. And He humbled Himself. And so we have these types of movements. We have sometimes the Messianic movements that'll come in and people have to wear special things because instead of just following strictly Scripture, not tradition.

And so this is what they were bringing up here in Colossians 2. It says, Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility so people can look humble, but you never know why they're doing it. Some are doing it just to let your guard down and fool you. False humility and worship of angels. So here some were being taught, well, you can't have one mediator.

You need numerous angels that because God is so far away, He can't deal with you directly. So you have to have this sequence of angels. And in 1 Timothy 2 verse 15, I'll just read it real quickly, tells us this. No, 1 Timothy 2 verse 5, For there is only one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. So sometimes people add these different types of beliefs.

It says, Including in those things which He has not seen, vainly puffed up with fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head with whom all the body nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with increase that is from God. Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why as though living in the world do you subject yourselves to regulations? Do not touch. So then here is what is called the ascetic movement.

Groups that say, well, you can't touch this, or you can't touch women, can't marry. There are all kinds of groups that are out there. Do not taste. So again, you have to exclude yourself from food that is authorized in the Bible. Do not handle, which all concern things which perish with the using according to the commandments and doctrines of men. This is not taught in the Bible. These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom and self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. So this was one of the teachings that was going on.

It was a kind of a Gnostic religious movement that had gotten in, and they were attacking God's feast days. Notice what it says also in verse 16. So let no one judge you in food or in drink. The better translation is, in your eating and drinking, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths. And so they were criticizing the Corinthian brother, the Colossian brother, because they were feasting on these days.

We feast in the feasts of tabernacles. We have the night to be much observed. We have Pentecost. We get together. And they were saying, no, these things you're handling, you're touching, you're enjoying, you have to be strict. You cannot have these pleasures. And Paul is saying, don't listen to them. He says, which are a shadow of things to come.

They portray events that are going to be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. But the substance is of Christ. He is the one that guides us. He's the head of the church. So this was the wrong teaching. And it's interesting. So in Colossians, you have the church keeping these things. I'd like to read to you from Larry Walker, pastor we have up in the Seattle area. He's retired now, but he's a Greek expert. And this is the paraphrase he used from the Greek. He says, don't let any man judge you for eating or drinking or your observance of a festival, new moon or Sabbath, which are a shadow of future events in God's master plan, of which Jesus Christ is the central figure.

But instead, let the body of Christ, the church, be your judge. So let's go now to Galatians chapter four. This is what I learned, which is the relationship. So in the Colossian church, the problem was they came and they say you shouldn't be keeping the feast days, the Sabbaths, you know, you should abstain from these things because you see, you're having too good of a time. This is not asceticism. This is not denial of the body and things like that.

But in Galatians, it was the opposite. In Galatians chapter four, let's go there. It says in verse nine, talking about these Gentile converts, but now after you have known God or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements to which you desire again to be in bondage?

You observe days and months and seasons and years. I'm afraid for you, lest I have labor for you in vain. So, Troy Martin, that I quoted before in his book, By Philosophy and Empty Deceit, he says, when Paul refers to days, months, seasons, and years in Galatians 4.10, which Protestants use, oh, you see, you shouldn't be keeping those things.

Well, it's a contradiction because they keep Sunday. They're keeping times. So, it wasn't dealing with special times as such. It says, when Paul refers to days, months, seasons, and years in Galatians 4.10, he is describing a pagan timekeeping system. Marking time, according to this pagan method, is tantamount, which means equal to rejecting Paul's gospel. When the Galatians accepted Paul's gospel, his teachings, they exchanged their pagan method of reckoning time for the Jewish, talking about the biblical method in Colossians 2.16. So, it's interesting that the Colossians, they were trying to be brought into a pagan system and leave the feast days aside.

In the epistle of Galatians, the Galatians had been taken out of their paganism, their pagan calendar and everything. Paul was teaching them the biblical calendar and some had reverted back to their pagan calendar. And what has this traditional Christianity done? Well, they came out of a pagan system. They were brought to God's calendar and their feast days.

And then they rejected that and they formed pagan calendar again, based on, of course, Constantine and the popes and everything else. They set it up. So, in a way, this is what people are doing with Christmas. They are keeping here days and months and seasons and years, according to the pagan dates. And people haven't realized it. They've been deceived by doing that.

So, that was something that I hadn't seen the connection with Galatians and Colossians about. So, Paul, after covering the Colossian heresy, by rebuking false teachings, teaching the truth and the right living, advised the brethren to use diplomacy and tact when dealing with those on the outside. So, should we just go out there and try to cram the truth down somebody's throat? No. Notice in the same epistle, and as I finish, in Colossians 4, after he dealt with the Colossian heresy, he gave them these tools. You can destroy false teachings. You can destroy lives of men that have risen up through tradition. I'm going to free you with the truth of God. But then he says, in Colossians 4, in verse 5, it says, We will Echo those who are outside, outside of the faith, redeeming the time, looking at the opportunity, if possible, to teach the truth. Let your speech, when you do, always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. Be diplomatic. In other words, here's another of the contemporary English version. It says, when you are with unbelievers, always make good use of the time. Be pleasant and hold their interest when you speak the message. Choose your words carefully, and be ready to give answers to anyone who asks questions. So, don't try to cram it, but if somebody is interested, you have the truth. You have God's wonderful golden nuggets to share with them. This is the best way to deal with the Christmas holidays, by knowing the truth, refuting it among family and brethren, showing them the truth, and pointing instead to blessings, the blessings of keeping God's feast days. But to those on the outside of the faith, be diplomatic and wise. So, try not to offend or say too much. Let them ask instead if they are interested.