Is Christmas a Sin?

Music Young society today, it almost seems like a sacrilege for professing Christian not to celebrate Christmas. It's an awkward time of the year, is it not? Everywhere you go, everybody's saying, you know, happy Christmas or Merry Christmas or, you know, they've got something to say and you're always wondering, what do I say? You know, how do I respond? You know, back to them. People, after all, believe that it's a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. This is a time of the year, if at any time, there's a lot of goodwill going on. You know, everybody's spreading goodwill and greenbacks. You know, that's what creates a lot of the goodwill.

Let me quote to you from an article here from Christmas Customs from Around the World.

It says, of all of the festival days had to be given up except one. It's quite probable that the voice of all the children would be mingled with those of adults and the sound forth would be a mighty course for retaining Christmas. Always do away with Easter, do away with Valentine's Day, forget about Halloween. We want Christmas! You know, that's what most people would say. I'm quoting from another book by Earl W. Count. Many of you have heard of this book, Four Thousand Years of Christmas. It demonstrates that Christmas has been around a lot longer than Jesus Christ has. Now, there's a question, and I thought that Alan articulated it very well. We have a situation where you look around the world and you see that people keep Christmas everywhere, where the custom has been around, and it antedates Christianity. The idea is that Christians borrowed it from the pagans. Therefore, the Christians borrowed it from the pagans. But, you know, the pagans were doing what was right. So, why are we so upset with the pagans? In other words, if we're doing the same thing that they did, and it's supposed to be Christian, why do we get disturbed? We'll take a look at that as we go through the sermon. You'll find here it says, Christmas is the main holiday, not only of professing Christian world, but also many of the non-Christian people. Strange as it may seem, Christmas is not in the Bible, was not observed by most professing Christians until four centuries after Jesus' death, and would have been forbidden in the early New Testament times. Christmas is at least 2,000 years older than the birth of Jesus, the true Messiah. Now, you'll find that Mesopotamia, in that area, is the very ancient mother of civilization. And that is, it goes on to show, Christmas has been observed for 4,000 years. The 12 days of Christmas, the bright lights, and probably the yule log, the giving of presents, the carnivals with their floats, their merrymaking, their clowning, the murmurers who sing and play from house to house, the feasting, the church processions with their lights and songs. All these and more began centuries before the Messiah was born. Now, all of that is taken from the book about 4,000 years of Christmas. Now, I have an article here that I thought would be very helpful to all of us. In looking at this particular article, it was written by our former association. And it began, or let's say, it explains the teaching that the worldwide Church of God came to in the middle of the 90s, in which they're observing today. The title of the article is Christmas, Is It a Sin? Is there anything wrong with Christmas? Now, we all know, going back years ago, if you've been around the Church for any number of years, that we all have booklets that were written years ago about Christmas, tracing the origin of Christmas. And I've got some in my files. I also just have them squirreled away in different places. There have been various editions of that book put out over the years. Well, 1995, leading up to it, and I thought about bringing this today, but didn't do it. The leadership of the Church at that time was going around talking about rumors. And they would go and say, there are people saying that we're going to stop keeping the Sabbath.

And then they would chuckle and say, what day are we meeting on? And of course, they were meeting on Saturday. So, you know, supposedly that just failed the rumor. There are those people who are saying we're going to do away with the Holy Days, you know, and that's a lie. And then there are those people who say that we're teaching Christmas, you know, and supposedly that was a lie. And there are those who are saying that it's okay to eat unclean foods. And here was this whole list of about 15 or 20 rumors going around that this whole sermon was built around. All of those rumors were lies, according to the speaker. However, every one of them came to pass, as we know, and they were not lies. They were just being covered up at that time. Now, the reason why I want to quote from this article is not so much about our former association as their approach and what they say and what they explain here in this article is very typical of the attitude and the approach we find in society, especially among many in the Protestant community. It helps to explain why they can justify keeping Christmas. Why, when you point out about its pagan origins, well, that's okay, but they'll come back and say, we're not keeping it for those reasons. And, you know, they always have an excuse or a reason, a rebuttal. And we need to understand that. And so, what I'd like to do today is to take a look at this, and I think we will come to understand a little better how they've come to their position on this. Let me begin by reading from the article. It says, all Christians, whether they celebrate Christmas or not, are welcome in the worldwide Church of God. Although traditionally this church does not celebrate Christmas, the New Testament, notice, New Testament gives no grounds for limiting Christian fellowship based on this custom. Christmas observance or non-observance is not a measure of Christian conversion. So, the point is, if you're converted or not converted, you can keep Christmas. And, you know, it shouldn't be an issue that is made that there's nothing in the New Testament that would actually address this. Well, if you will turn over to Matthew 15. We're going to be going through several scriptures here today in Matthew 15, beginning in verse 7, one of them. This does happen to be a New Testament scripture. It was mentioned by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was talking to the leaders of his day. These were the Jews. They kept the Sabbath. They kept the Holy Days. They tithed. They fasted. They didn't eat unclean foods. They did all of these type of things. But notice what he said. Hypocrites, verse 7, well did Isaiah prophesy about you say, these people draw near to me with their mouth, and they honor me with their lips. So, they talk about God all the time. But notice, but their heart is far from me.

Now, we know that David was a man after God's own heart. So, David was a man who was close to God. But here he's saying these people, their hearts, far from me. They're not like David. They're not like a converted person is supposed to be. Why? What was the problem? Well, in vain, they worshiped me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.

So, Christ very clearly shows that if you teach the doctrines, in other words, your teachings, are the commandments of men, the traditions of men, that you are actually worshiping God in vain. And so, what we find, if we're not going to worship God in vain, if we're going to worship God correctly the way He wants, then you have to do what He says. Now, you see, even though they were outwardly observing all of these things, such as the Sabbath and the Holy Days, they were also teaching doctrines, or their basic teachings, were contrary to what God wanted, and they were just based on commandments of men. So, when we begin to substitute the commandments of men for the teachings of God, you worship God in vain. And that's exactly what happens, as we'll see, as you go through and you look at what most Protestants do, as far as customs and traditions. Going on with this article, it says, Traditionally, the Church, or this Church, has followed the historical Puritan practice of not observing Christmas.

Now, I want you to analyze where they go off before they even get started here. Everything that they say in this article about what the Church did in the past is predicated on what the Puritans did. So, you know, the Puritans did this, the Puritans did that, but, you know, that doesn't mean that they go on to say, because the Puritans did it, that we should do it. Well, it's not the Puritans, as we will see here, but let me read this. It says, Understanding some of the reasons behind the Puritans' rejection of Christmas is helpful in understanding our own position on this subject today. Now, when you first learned about Christmas, did you go back and ask yourself the question, What did the Puritans do? And whatever they did, I will do. Was that the question you asked yourself? Or did you get an encyclopedia out? Did you get the Encyclopedia Britannica or the Catholic Encyclopedia? And, of course, today all you have to do is get your computer out and type Christmas, type Pagan Christmas, type Christmas Customs, and you will have hundreds and thousands of websites that will pop up and we'll just snowball you with information about Christmas. Well, most of us did not go and say, Well, what did the Puritans do? Therefore, that's what we will do. We'll follow their customs. What you find is that we prove to ourselves what the Bible has to say. We looked in the Bible. We looked at the historical records and we made a decision. Now, one of the interesting things was to find out that the early settlers in this country didn't observe Christmas. That was forbidden and the Puritans did. You know, that just sort of backs up what we believe, but it's not the reason for our doing so.

So, why do we do or what did we do back then? You know, we were in our former association, and what are we doing today? Well, it's all based upon the Scriptures and not on what some other organization says. Let's notice back in Jeremiah the 10th chapter. Jeremiah the 10th chapter, beginning in verse 1, we find here a admonition that is given by Jeremiah. Verse 1, he says, Hear the word which the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. So, this isn't just to the Jews, it's to the house of Israel, not to just the house of Judah. Now, notice what God tells them. Thus says the Lord, Do not. Now, when you say do not, what does that mean?

Well, if you have children, they grow up, or as they're growing up, you said, do not slam the back door. What does that mean? Don't slam the back door. Do not put your elbows on the table. Do not eat with your mouth open. You know, do not, and you can supply anything you want to save. So, when God says do not, that means don't do it. Do not learn something, the way of the Gentiles. So, we're told not to learn of the ways, customs, traditions of the Gentiles. Now, last year I gave a sermon where I also went through, and I showed that there are two ways of life. There's the way of Babylon, the way that the Gentiles have followed, and then there's the way of God, that the Bible very clearly points out. So, here it says the way of the Gentiles were not to learn. Do not be dismayed at signs of heaven, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them, for the customs of the people are futile, are vanity. For one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hand, they decorate with silver and gold, and we go on to find that, talking about idol-making and all of that. But the principle is that we're not to go to the nations around us, to all of the different religions, and ask ourselves, well, how did they worship God? What customs did they keep? How did they approach God? We're not to learn their ways. Now, going on in this article, it says, the Puritans believed that the first century church modeled a Christianity that modern Christians should copy. I think that's pretty good. You know, pretty good summation.

They attempted to base their faith and practice solely on the New Testament. We do on the whole Bible, not just the New Testament. And their position on Christmas reflects the commitment to practice a pure, scriptural form of Christianity. So, all they were relying upon was Scripture. Now, we know that the Catholic Church relies on what?

Some Scripture, but basically, tradition. You know, oral tradition, same thing with the Jews. The Jews have the Old Testament, but they equate oral tradition equal with that. The Catholic Church does the same thing. Now, one of the things that the Church of God has always said, and one of the things that we have said as an example in talking with the branding group that we've talked to, that we believe that we model the first century Church, that we can trace our roots back to the first century Christianity. That what the United Church of God practices is first century, our primitive Christianity. And that's based upon the Bible and on the Scripture, and not on traditions or customs that have developed since then. So, there's nothing wrong with modeling what we do after the first century Church. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about here. In John 8, verse 28, John chapter 8, and we'll begin to read in verse 28, notice what Jesus Christ says here. Jesus Christ came to the earth, and in verse 28, Jesus said to them, When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself. There's nothing that I could do just on my own. But as my Father taught me, I speak these things. So, when Jesus Christ came to the earth, and He taught, He preached, He trained His disciples, He received the message from the Father. The Father taught Him. He turned around and taught the disciples. And guess what? The disciples turned around and taught us. We then are supposed to turn around and teach the next generation, and it's supposed to be passed from one generation to the next generation, God's way of life. Chapter 17 here in the book of John, verse 8. John 17 and verse 8. Christ explains this very clearly. He says, For I have given to them the words which you have given me. So you gave me the message, Christ said. I pass it on to them, and they've received them. And they've received them. So, you know, they've accepted what I taught them. And have known surely that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. Now in verse 14, I've given them your word. And the world has hated them because they're not of the world, just as I am not of the world. So what we find is the world will hate true believers, because we do not go along with the customs and the traditions of the world. And what Christ taught is the opposite of what the world and society believes. Now let's go back to the book of Jude. In the book of Jude, verse 3.

Little book of Jude, verse 3.

Jude was writing toward the end of the first century.

And you'll notice what he has to say here.

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write you concerning our common salvation. So he's describing salvation here. I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Now notice how this is phrased.

He exhorted them. He encouraged them to contend. That implies that they were losing it. So he says, you go out there, you contend for it. You fight for it. You hold on to it. The faith which was once for all delivered to the saints are the teachings. The teachings that Christ taught, and he taught his disciples, were the teachings that have been delivered once for all to the saints. Doesn't say that there are going to be a whole stream of other teachings come along later on based upon tradition and customs of this world, of this society. In fact, 2 Timothy chapter 4 describes what was going to happen in the future. This is the reason why Jude was saying, you contend for this. In verse 1, 2 Timothy 4, I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the Word, be ready in season, out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all the long suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.

So the time is going to come. They won't endure sound teaching of the apostles they taught. But according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers. So they'll get people who will teach them what they want to hear. And they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.

Not the truth. What is truth? John 1717, thy word is true. So they'll turn away from the truth, and they will turn to fables. So this is exactly what you find has happened. Now, let's go on here in the article. It says, Puritans argued, again, they're using the Puritan example, that God reserved to himself the determination of all proper form of worship, and that he disapproved of any human innovation, even innovations that celebrate the great events of salvation. So they're saying that the Puritans felt that they should only worship God the way he told them to. Now, that's a strange idea, is it not? I'm being facetious when I say that. Obviously, that's what God would want us to do. In Deuteronomy 12, let's go there. Deuteronomy 12, and beginning in verse 29, Deuteronomy 12, verse 29, you find that God reserves to Himself the right to tell us how to worship Him. He determines what all proper worship is. And in verse 29, He clearly tells us here, when the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations, which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself, that you are not ensnared to follow them. So it says, don't follow the Canaanites, you all of these different tribes, after they are destroyed from before you, that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, Well, how did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.

You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they've done to their gods, for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. You shall not add to it, notice, you shall not add to it, nor take away from it. Be the one. You're not to remove some of it, you're not to add to it. This is exactly what you find they're wanting to do, as we'll see. They're wanting to add to what God has said. Now, tie in again, Matthew 15, Mark 7, where Christ said, In vain do they worship Me, teaching His doctrines, the commandments of men, and you find that God is the one who gives us the instructions on how to worship Him. Now, going on in this article, the name Christmas also alienated many Puritans.

Does the average person have any idea what Christmas means? What the term Christmas means? As it goes on to say here, Christmas, after all, meant the Mass of Christ. The Mass of Christ. The Mass was despised as a Roman Catholic institution, and undermined the Protestant concept of Christ who offered Himself once for our sins.

The Puritans, passionate aversion to any practice that wreaked the papal Rome, calls them to overlook the fact that in many countries the name for the day has nothing to do with the Catholic Mass, but focuses instead on Jesus' birth. The Mass did not evolve into the form abhorred by Protestants until long after Christmas was widely observed. The two customs had separate, though interconnected, histories. That's true, and it's not true, as we will see. The Mass of Christ is nothing but idolatry, as we will see. Christmas gets its name from the Latin word Christus Mass, or the Mass of Christ. The French called it Noël, the Scandinavians Eulen Eul, the Italians Natalia, and the Germans Weihnacht. By celebrating the Mass of Christ, one is openly supporting the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and its pagan Mass. Now, let me explain what I mean by that. One of the things, if you'll study into the Sabbath, that the Catholic Church has written on, is the fact that the very fact that the Protestants keep Sunday today, as a day of worship, is tacit approval of the Catholic Church, because they will tell the Protestants there is nothing in the Bible that tells you to change from Saturday to Sunday. The only reason you observe Sunday is because we changed it. I mean, they state that plainly. We changed it. The only authority you have for keeping it is the Catholic Church. So if you keep Sunday, you are acknowledging the authority of the Catholic Church. If you keep a celebration called Christmas, you are acknowledging the authority of the Catholic Church of the Christ Mass.

So what is the Roman Catholic Mass? Well, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, page 375, the sacrifice of the Mass is really the holy and living representation, and at the same time, the unbloody and the facious oblation of the Lord's passion or suffering, and that blood-stained sacrifice which was offered for us on the cross.

And then going on, in the Mass, Jesus is considered to be both priest and the victim, represented by the Catholic priest who offers Him as a sacrifice over and over again each time the Mass is performed. As the supposed mediator between God and man, the priest believes He has the power to change the bread and the wine into Jesus' literal flesh and literal blood. The miracle is called transubstantiation that is consumed by the people. So when you partake of the Catholic Mass and you eat the little wafer that they give you, they teach that that literally is the flesh of Christ. Not symbolic, not that it symbolizes, but you're literally eating His flesh. You drink the wine or grape juice, whatever they use, and they think that literally shows the blood of Jesus Christ. And so therefore, they keep Mass at almost any time. Christ's Mass is a Mass for Christ, supposedly in honor of Him. And consequently, you find they teach this. Now, what do you and I, brethren, observe? Do we observe Christmas? Well, of course, we do not. Do we observe a Mass? What custom do we keep today? I think all of us know we observe the Passover. Let's go over here to 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 23, the example that the Apostle Paul gives to us. 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 23. Paul said, I received from the Lord, at which I also delivered to you. Now, remember, Paul was taught by Christ for about three years. And so he said, you know, I received from the Lord. So he was taught personally, and this is what he's going to teach them. Now, 1 Corinthians 11, last part of verse 23, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. Now, what night was he betrayed? It was the Passover evening. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take heat, this is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying this cup is the new covenant of my blood. This do you as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. He doesn't say you drink it as often as you want to, but as often as you partake in it, you're doing it to remember me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. So he's very clear here to show that we follow Jesus Christ's example. Now, in Luke 22, back up to Luke, Luke 22 and verse 7, notice what Christ did.

He says, Then came the days of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed. And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat. And so they said to him, Where do you want us to prepare? And he said, Well, behold, when you enter into the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house which he enters. And you shall say to the master of the house, The teacher says, Where is the guest room? Where I may eat the Passover. So what we find is that Christ was going to eat the Passover. And so they showed him the supper room. Verse 13, They went and found it just as he said to them, and they prepared the Passover. Now, when the hour came, verse 14, he sat down with the twelve apostles with him. And he said to them, With fervent desire, I desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. And then that night he changed the symbols from the killing of a lamb to eating the bread and the wine. And he took the cup, he gave thanks, he said, Take ye, divide it, and you can read the rest of the story here. So Jesus Christ instituted the service, ceremonies, we follow today, the foot washing, the bread, the wine, the singing of a hymn. We follow the example of Christ in that. We do not take a Mass every Sabbath. We don't do it four times a year. I grew up in a typical Protestant church, and they held what they called communion quarterly. Some do it every Sunday. Some will do it every day. Others will do it monthly, weekly. There are all kinds of ideas out there. But when you look in the Bible, you see Christ's example, and Paul said, you know, he was following the example of Jesus Christ. You find that we keep the Passover as Christ ordained. Now going on with the article here about Christmas.

As hardened Protestants, Puritans identified the embracing of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the early 300s as the starting point of the degeneration and corruption of the church. They believed the corruption of the church was brought on by the inner weaving of the church with pagan Roman state. Well, again, I wouldn't argue with that. I think it started much earlier than that. The starting point of degeneration and corruption in the church was in the first century. Mr. Armstrong used to say, at the end of the first century, it was like a curtain fell over the church. And, you know, a century later or so when that curtain rose, there was a completely different church, completely different customs, completely different traditions and ideas that they were teaching. I've covered with you the book of Colossians, and in Colossians 2 it talks about the Gnostics. Gnosticism had begun in the first century. You find that Christ said, you know, beware, many will come in my name saying I'm the Christ, will deceive many. And so you find deception. Deception is something that Christ said would run rampant in the church at that time. You find false teachers being pointed out all the time. And yet, you do find that there was a system, a church, that rose up that became involved in the politics of the world. And that church has continued down to this day. In 2 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, beginning in verse 3, let's notice here 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, in verse 3, 3 That the apostle Paul clearly shows that there was a false system, religious system, that arose. It was already very active when he wrote this book. This is one of the earlier books that was written some 20-something years after the New Testament church had started.

In verse 3, he says, let no one deceive you by any means. For that day, referring back to verse 1, the day concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, he says, let no one deceive you by any means. For that day will not come unless the falling away comes first. Falling away from what? Well, from the truth, as we will see, from God's way of life.

And the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition. So there is a man of sin who's going to come on the scene. Now, going on in verse 5, do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time. So this system, even though it began to operate at that time, somebody, something, was holding back this man of sin from coming on the scene too early. And he is described here, or it's described in verse 7, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.

What is lawlessness? What is disobedience to God's law? There was a system, a mystery, of lawlessness already working. Only he who now restrains will do so until he, this man of sin, is taken out of the way. And then that lawless one will be revealed. Okay, when is the appropriate time for him to come on the scene and be revealed?

Well, it's at the end time, our day. He has, even though he may, well, he's obviously alive today, but whether he's the man sitting in Rome today or somebody else, we don't really know. But notice that lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. So this man will be alive when Jesus Christ comes back.

In the book of Revelation, it talks about the beast and the false prophet. This is the false prophet, spoken of in the book of Revelation. And verse 9 says, the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders.

And then it goes on to talk about with all unfamed deception or unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth. The problem is that the truth would become corrupted. Now let's go over to Revelation 17. Revelation 17. We find in the book of Revelation, it describes this Babylonian system. It describes a religious system. It describes a political system. It describes economic system. All of them referred to as Babylon. Here in chapter 17, we find the interweaving, or meshing, of the political and religious system. And it's described here very clearly, beginning in verse 1, Revelation 17, then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, Come, and I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman, a woman symbolic of a church, sitting on a scarlet beast. This beast is described earlier in the book of Revelation, a political entity. The United States of Europe, the revival of the Holy Roman Empire, says which was full of names of blaspheme, having seven heads, ten horns.

And a woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet. So here you find her mounting the beast and riding the beast, and it describes a religious political union. In 476, the Roman Empire, the Western Empire, fell. In 554, there was a revival under Justinian, and from that time forward, you find the the popes beginning to crown the rulers as kings.

And there was a church-state affiliation. And at the very end time, that same church-state affiliation will once again be resurrected. And there will be a very strong, let's say, union of both of those. And that's what this is talking about. Now, the quote here that I was referring to was about the inner weaving of the church with the pagan Roman state. And I would say that did happen.

And you find a religious political entity took place. Now, let's go on reading this article. It says, "...to the Puritans, Christmas was impure because it entered the Roman church sometime in this period." Is that the only reason why Christmas is impure? Because, you know, the Puritans were upset that it entered the Roman church at this time? Or is it because, one, it's not commanded in the Bible?

We're not told to keep it. Secondarily, it is an adaptation of pagan ideas and concepts. Goes on to say, "...no one knows the exact year under what circumstances. Roman Christians began to celebrate the birth of the Lord by the mid 300s. The practice was well established. No evidence exists that the Christian leaders who began this practice consciously wanted to compromise with paganism. They may simply have wanted to celebrate incarnation." Now, there's an important point here. It says that they consciously wanted to compromise with paganism. I think they did. But what if you're doing something wrong and you don't know it's wrong?

If you're not conscious of it, is it still wrong? When you and I, before we were converted and called by God, kept Sunday, Christmas, Easter, and we're part of this world, the traditions around us, we were not conscious that those things were wrong. But when God began to work with us, called us, opened our minds, revealed to us the truth, we had to put them away.

So it's almost as if, well, they didn't consciously do it, so therefore don't worry about it. But there was a conscious effort made because in order to bring especially the Germanic tribes into the church to begin to convert the Gentiles, what they did, a lot of these customs were very similar, so they brought them in, renamed them, called them by a different name, and they consciously compromised with the truth. It says, however, modern scholars generally agree that the date they chose for Christmas was influenced by a pagan celebration on or about the same day honoring the invincible son.

Consequently, many customs, unrelated to the birth of Christ, that commonly characterize modern Christianity or modern Christmas celebration, were also present in pre-Christian pagan celebrations. So what they're saying is that it was influenced by what is known as the invincible son. Let me quote here from an article from the Golden Bough. I don't know how many of you have a copy of that book, but it's a book that has a lot of tremendous information in it, titled The Feast of Soul or The Feast of the Sun. Roman feast of the sun god at the time of the winter solstice, also called Natalis Invictus Solus, or the birthday of the unconquered sun, says Fraser, the largest pagan religious cult which faltered the celebration of December 25th as a holiday throughout the Roman and Greek world, was the pagan sun worship of Mithra.

This winter festival was called the Nativity.

I'm not talking about Christ, I'm talking about Mithra. They called it the Nativity. The Nativity of the sun, S-U-N, not S-O-N. The Catholic Encyclopedia says the well-known solar festival of Natalis Invictus, or Invicti, the Nativity of the unconquered sun, celebrated on the 25th of December, has a strong claim on the responsibility for the December date. So that's where the December 25th date came from. It goes back to Mithra.

Now, Churchillian, one of the early church leaders, had to assert that soul was not the Christian God. So those who were coming into the church, you know, they had to be taught, no, this guy is not the Christian God, the Son of God is. Augustine denounced heretical identification of Christ with soul. And Pope Leo, the first bitterly reproved solar survivors, Christians on the very doorstep of the Apostle's Basilica, turning to adore the rising sun. So here they are about to go into, you know, church. Sun comes up, they turn around, fall down, worship the sun. And they had to say, no, you don't do that. So there was a compromise at that time. As the article goes on to say, the synergistic character of most forms of Christmas celebration was enough for the Puritans to avoid the holiday as a compromise with the pure exercise of Christian faith. What, when you look at the worship of Mithra, what do you find? The Collier's Encyclopedia under the article Christmas states this. The choice of December 25 was probably influenced by the fact that on this day, the Romans celebrated Mithric feast of the sun god, and that the Saturnalia also came at this time. So he had both of these festivals around the same time. The worship of Mithra was especially popular with the Roman legions. Now this was something that I did not know until I started looking at this. Mithra means friend or dead ruler. Though those seem quite contrary to one another, but friend or dead ruler. Originating in Persia, the Mithra cult found its way to Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Rome, and parts of the Roman Empire during the time of the Emperors. Fraser in the Golden Bough reports that Mithra was regularly identified by the worshipers with the sun. The unconquered sun, as they called him, hence his nativity, also fell on the 25th of December. Mithra worshipers were called soldiers of the faith and invincible just like the sun. Hence, it had a wide appeal to the soldiers. See, the Roman soldiers would go march the war with the banner of Mithra over them, because Mithra was the unconquerable sun. They were the unconquerable army. They were Mithra's servants.

Thus, it's not surprising that the Emperor Constantine, a sun worshiper and soldier himself, had a supposed vision with the sun and the sign of the cross telling him, in this sign, conquer, Constantine led the merger of pagan Mithraism with nominal Christianity to produce a most unholy mixture. That unholy mixture actually comes down to today. Mithra worship became a competitor and close counterfeit of the apostate Christianity for the number one religion of the decadent Roman Empire. In fact, Mithraism actually did win out because their practices masqueraded as Christianity and became the dominant religion of the world.

Many of the practices that are practiced today, especially in the Roman Catholic Church, are nothing more than a continuation of the Mithric religion. So, that's why they said it won out. From the book Mystery Religions in the Ancient World, Mithra was a creator and order of the universe. Since a manifestation of the creative logos or word, seeing mankind afflicted by the cosmic power of darkness, he incarnated himself on earth. In other words, he came to the earth as a human being. His birth on 25th of December was witnessed by shepherds. After many deeds, he held a Last Supper with his disciples, returned to heaven.

At the end of the world, he will come again to judge resurrected mankind, and after the last battle, victorious over evil, he will lead the chosen ones who are river of fire to the blessed immortality.

Now, you have to ask yourself, doesn't that sound a little bit like the story of the Bible?

Did the Bible copy from Mithra? And therefore, we have that. See, this is what the critics of the Bible would say. Well, let me explain that, because I've heard a lot of people say, when I mentioned earlier about the Bible copying pagans, the idea is that the pagan religions are much older than Christianity. Therefore, the stories in the Bible are similar to stories that the pagans believed in, because they believed in a Madonna and child. They talk about a flood. You know, they talk here about the nativity, the birth of a Savior, having to save mankind, you know, all of this. So, if they preceded Christianity, then did Christianity copy from them? And the answer is no. They copied from the truth. What do I mean by that? There was a flood. After the flood, Noah and his three sons and their wives began to reproduce and inhabit the earth. Noah is described in the Bible as a preacher of righteousness. What is righteousness? What is it? Psalm 119, 172, All I Commandments of Righteousness. Righteousness is doing what's right, keeping God's commandments and His law. So, Noah and the after the flood, the early descendants of Noah and his family knew and understood the true teachings of God.

Did God reveal to Noah the fact that one day there would be a Savior, that He would come as a human being? He would die for the sins of mankind. Well, you find they offered up sacrifices, which were examples of what was going to come. So, obviously, they understood that. They were taught the truth. Along comes the Tower of Babel. Along comes Nimrod in Semiramis, his wife. Nimrod is killed. They started a false religious system that was contrary to God's way of life, that was conflicting with what Noah and his family were believing and teaching. At the Tower of Babel, languages were confounded basically by families and tribes. These families and tribes scattered all over the earth. People speaking a certain language went over here and started living. Now, they all have the same customs. They all had some of the truth that they'd been taught from Noah. They had the false religion from Semiramis and Nimrod, but they all call their gods and their teachings by different names because they've got different languages. Then centuries go by. Some of these things get lost. Some of it gets perverted. Some of it gets twisted, but they all have a record. They all have a record of a flood. They all have a record of a coming Savior. That was all based upon the fact that Semiramis had a baby named Horace, who was supposedly an immaculate conception. This was after Nimrod died. She said that she didn't know a man. This baby just came along, and he was the Savior of the world. Well, she was a prostitute. It was her problem. But, you know, this is why she pommed off on the people. And so these stories have been carried down. So where did the pagans get their ideas? They got them from the truth that God revealed to the human race, especially after the flood, to Noah and his descendants. What does Romans 1 say? When they knew God, they didn't honor Him. They knew God. They began to make idols, and they began to worship many other things. So it's not a matter that Christianity borrowed from the pagans. The pagans borrowed the truth of God from the true servants of God, and they twisted it and perverted it. And, you know, in all nations have some of it, but it's all truth and error. It's sitting under the tree of the knowledge of truth and error, and they have twisted it around. So, you know, you find that that's, to me, when you think about it, that's quite a revelation about what has happened. Several other things here I could mention, but let's skip over here to the central issue, since this is what they claim it is. The central issue regarding Christmas observance is this. Now, this is what our former association says. How much freedom do Christians have in the New Covenant? Either individually or as a church to express their faith, worship, and thanks toward Christ in forms not found in the Bible. Okay, how much freedom do we have? Well, let's go back to Revelation 22 quickly. It's Revelation 22 and verse 12.

Notice who's going to be in the kingdom of God in the future. It says, Behold, I am coming quickly. My reward is with me to give to everyone according to his works. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Blessed are those that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, may enter in through the gates into the city. So if you're going to partake of the tree of life and live forever, you must keep the commandments of God. Then down in verse 18 and 19, he says, same thing we read back in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 12, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues written in this book. If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life. So God says, don't add to, don't take away. Now doesn't Proverbs 16, 25 tell us there's a way that seems right to a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death, that everybody does what seems right to him? That's individually, that's collectively, and over the years you find that that's exactly what has happened with humanity and the various nations. Again, the accusation, and let me just read this here.

devout Christians sometimes confuse ancient form with modern substance. I'm quoting from the article again, once pagan, always pagan, is the way the worldwide church of God wants reason. While we admit the transforming power of Christ for people, we deny it for customs and traditions.

Now notice again their reasoning. The power of God, the Holy Spirit, can change you, can it not? And it does. God gives us his spirit. He implants his mind, his way of life, his nature within us, the fruits of the spirit. We have the gifts of the spirit. We develop the character of God. So he's saying, well, you know, God's spirit can do that, and yet we deny that it can transform customs and traditions. Well, there's a little problem with that as I'll show you. Yet many of the practices God approved for ancient Israel had previously existed in paganism.

So what they're saying is that the religion, when Israel was brought out of Egypt, went into Canaan, that what God gave to them was a religion borrowed from the pagans.

Temples, priests, harvest festivals, music, in worship, circumcision, tithing, all had ancient pagan counterparts. God transformed these customs into a form of worship devoted to him. So they're saying what God did was to take these pagan teachings, change them into a form to worship him. And I say that's an abomination in God's sight. The pagans knew somewhat of the truth, as I've already explained, because God had revealed his truth to mankind, and it had become confused. And when mankind was was driven away from Babylon, let's go back to Leviticus 18. Leviticus 18.

The accusation is that God borrowed these pagan days and rites and rituals for his people to observe. And yet God very plainly says here, Leviticus 18 verse 1, The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, I am the Lord your God, according to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwell, you shall not do. So God said, I brought you out of Egypt. Don't do as they do. And according to the doing of the land of Canaan, where I shall bring you, you shall not do, nor shall you walk in their ordinances. You shall observe my judgments, keep my ordinances, and you shall therefore keep my statutes, my judgment, which if a man does, he shall live by them. I am the Lord. So God said that they were not to follow the customs of the land. Now, the problem with this reasoning is twofold. They claim that it's okay to take customs and traditions and that the Holy Spirit will convert them, change them, make them different. But what they do, they substitute days for what God commands. You see, maybe they can make an argument if they still kept the Passover, all of the annual holy days, and were observing it and said, okay, we're doing this. Now, we're also wanting to take some of these other customs. You can say, well, maybe they might make an argument. They don't, but, just, you know, according to their reasoning. But when they totally do away with those days and say that they shouldn't be observed, and then they substitute these other days, what are they doing? Well, they're substituting pagan days in place of what God commanded. God commands one thing, they come along and substitute something else. They drop the true worship of God, and at days that God says not to learn. God says, don't learn the way of the heathen. And so, they've learned the way of the heathen. What kind of liberty do we have today? Well, we'll end here in James. James 1, verse 25. Where is our liberty? Freedom that we have as a Christian.

Verse 25, James 1, he who looks into the perfect law of liberty continues in it, and not being a forgetful here, but a doer of the work, this one shall be blessed in what he does.

God's law, Ten Commandments, the spiritual law of God, is called a law of liberty. Why? Because if you keep it, it liberates you from sin. Sin has a penalty. You're cursed when you sin. And so, if your sins are forgiven, you obey God's law, and you can be blessed. Notice in chapter 2, in verse 27. Excuse me, chapter 2, in verse 12. In chapter 2, verse 12 of James, so speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. God's law is called a law of liberty. We're freed from the domination, slavery of sin. We're freed from the slavery to Satan the devil. We're freed from the slavery of the lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes, pride of life. Those are things we still wrestle with, but as the Bible shows, they're no longer to dominate us, control us, rule us. We are to begin to rule over them, and we're no longer slaves to the world and its customs, its traditions.

So, brethren, it's very clear what the Bible says. We do not observe Christmas because the Bible very clearly tells us not to. The Bible very clearly tells us how to worship God, what customs to keep, what traditions to observe, what days to observe. And it does not say you can substitute any old thing that you want and come up with it. Oh, God says we are to obey according to what He has said. There's much more in this article that we could cover, but I've tried to cover the basic approach that they use. And as I stated to start with, I'm not just picking on them. This is the typical rationale that is used in the world for why Christmas is observed. And so, therefore, this would apply to almost any group. So, brethren, we need to know why we believe what we believe and to realize that Satan has deceived this world. You and I have had our minds open. We need to be totally aware and be very thankful that at this time of the year that we truly do know what God says to do, what days to keep, what days not to keep, and that we do worship God in truth and in spirit.