A Tale of Two Trees

We have a very interesting sermon today. A lot of research is involved, but it's not hard to go over. We can begin with our PowerPoint presentation. The title is called, A Tale of Two Trees. Remember, Dickens had one tale of two cities. This is a tale of two trees. And this tale begins in the Garden of Eden. Let's go to the next slide. In the midst of the Christmas holiday, what does Christ have to say about it? He said, quote, And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8, 32. He meant being free from lies and errors of Satan and men. You will know the truth, and you will be free from the lies and errors of Satan and men. Sometimes, though, the truth can be inconvenient, but it is always the right path to take. Brethren, we are in the business of the truth. That's what we are all about. If you don't want to know the truth of God, if you don't want to know the truth of things, this isn't the church for you, because we love God's truths, and we want to follow God's truths. We are here to learn more about God's truths. So we begin. Let's start with a fundamental truth. Learning the difference between a holiday and a holy day. Where did the term holiday come from? Next slide. The origin of the term holiday comes from Prolingo.com, which is a linguistic company. It says, the word holiday came from an old English word that was first recorded in 950 AD. It didn't even exist in Bible times. It was Halleg day. Halleg for holy, and dig from day. So this is kind of a German word. It came into the old English. The first recorded spelling as holiday was in 1460 AD, little before Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World. Most certainly, the holy days, it goes on to say, that God commands in the Christian Bible, and those kept by Jesus and his apostles, are almost universally ignored in our modern society. That's a big admission. A fact that could explain why the celebration of Christmas is nowhere to be found in the Christian Bible. Also, next. The term holiday did not come from the holly. Some kind of related to hollies and all these kinds of nice red berries. This comes from The Sun, newspaper in England. It asks, ever wonder why holly is a symbol of Christmas? Here's the interesting reason why. It is associated with Christmas dates all the way back to Roman times. The holly was the sacred plant of the God Saturn, and the Romans used to send bows of the bush to their friends along with gifts to mark the Saturnalia festival. The feast was celebrated between December 17th and the 23rd, the darkest time of the year, to commemorate the God of Agriculture, creation and time, and the transition from winter into spring and sunshine. Again, celebrating the God Saturn, which in the Greek would be the equivalent of Zeus. Next.

So there is a big difference between a holiday and a holy day. A holiday, then, is just a watered-down version of what used to be God's holy day.

God does not talk about a holiday in the Bible, but He does talk about my holy day. He says in Isaiah 58, verse 13, If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath at the light, the holy day of the Lord. So here twice, God is saying, this is my holy day. It's not a holiday. It's right in the Bible. The Sabbath and God's feasts are called holy days, not holidays. That's the counterfeit.

Holidays are the counterfeit of the world for God's holy days. In Nehemiah 8, verses 2 and 10, it says about the feast of trumpets, today is a holy day for the Lord, referring to one of God's feasts. So it's not something invented. When we talk about a holy day, it is in the Bible. It has to do with God's feasts and God's Sabbath.

Next, regarding the Roman holiday Saturnalia, this is from the website simpletoremembered.com. It's a Jewish website. It says, the Greek satirical poet and historian Lucian, AD 120 to 200, in his work entitled Saturnalia, describes the festival's observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs. Widespread intoxication, going from house to house while singing undressed, rape and other sexual license. It was a wild time, because the god Saturn had to be placated, and it was a time of disorder, kind of like one of these Mardi Gras they have in Louisiana now, New Orleans. Next. So, the tale of two trees begins in the garden of Eden. As I mentioned, it had two trees, and it says in Genesis 2, 8, and 9, it says, the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put man where he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life and also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yes, there are two trees that symbolize two ways of life, the way of obedience and the way of disobedience to God. Next. Yeah, we have it. God tested Adam and Eve about obedience to him, just like a parent would do with a child. And just what kind of child am I going to have? Am I going to have a rebellious child or an obedient child?

Next. The result was Adam and Eve disobeyed and sinned. They were banished to now wander in Satan's world, but the memory of the two trees was not forgotten. Next. And so you have the Sumerians, which basically were the first civilization that was developed, as far as we know, after the flood. And this was on the plain right below the Ararat Mountains, where Noah descended, and all the animals, and then the animals spread around the earth. And you see the Sumerians here. This is an actual archaeological artifact. It shows men, kings, worshiping the tree of life under the solar god's influence. So, man started looking at the trees as something special from that memory of the two trees, and that somehow it had special effects. The Egyptians worshiping a sacred tree as well.

So society vaguely knew about a tree that had offered eternal life. And, of course, through all of the myths, you see Jason, the Argonaut chasing after the Golden Fleece, and the Gilgamesh legend of the Babylonians and Assyrians, which had to do with the search for eternal life. It goes all the way to Ponce de Leon with his search for the fountain of life. So they knew there was a time when that had been offered to man, but it had been lost. So man's always been trying to invent religions that will bring back that promise of eternal life.

But they did not want to obey God. So they have followed Satan and have been symbolically partaking not of the tree of life, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Next. Through their disobedience, they degenerated their spiritual lives by worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. I'm going to read that scripture in Romans, chapter 1, verse 18, because this basically describes today's society as well. It's becoming more and more godless. I don't know how many have read these statistics about how many youths they're called nuns because they don't have any religious affinity. They might believe in certain things, but they don't have a church to identify with. And that's turning out to be like 25 to 30 percent of the youth are nuns. They have no religious affiliation. In Romans, chapter 1, and verse 18, it talks about God's quite upset at the way man has turned his back on him and has started worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. It says, verse 18, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and upright unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power, and Godhead, so they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they could see in nature the order, the creation itself, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God in an image made like corruptible man, all the statues of Zeus and others, and birds and four-footed animals, and creeping things like the Egyptians, with thousands of different gods made out of animals and other things. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshipped and served the creature, rather than the creator, who was blessed forever. We see society going that way. They worship things instead of he who made those things.

Let's continue. Oh, I wanted to show here the worship of trees that's very common nowadays. And that in the religion is the lowest level of religion, which is called animism, which is the belief that nature has a soul, the belief that things in nature, for example, plants, mountains, animals, and the sky have souls or consciousness. And so, of course, they go to the tree god for favor. They go to the mountain god so that they're closer to heaven and the river god, so that they'll have plenty of water. So they looked at nature and started worshiping all about nature. Now, the next step from animism, which is where you think everything has a soul that is on earth, to polytheism. Sir James Fraser, let's go there to a quote. This is from his book, The Golden Bough, the worship of trees. It says, in the religious history of the Aryan race in Europe, as to do more with the Germans coming in to Europe, the worship of trees has played an important part. When a tree comes to be viewed no longer as the body of the tree spirit, but simply as its abode, which it can quit at pleasure, an important advance has been made in religious thought. Animism is passing into polytheism, so now you're not worshiping the tree, but the god who is representing the tree, but not necessarily in the tree. Let's continue. With the second commandment, God prohibited worshiping nature, including trees or the sky. Deuteronomy 5, 8-9, it says, you shall not make for yourself a carved image. Don't take a tree, don't make an image from a tree. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them.

And so that's why we don't have any religious symbols. We don't even have a cross, because we don't see the worship of crosses in the Bible, and it actually also comes from ancient Babylon, with the god Tamas, who that term T comes from there, and then you have the Egyptian Ankh symbol, the Egyptian cross, and others.

We worship God in spirit and in truth.

It says, Deuteronomy 12, 2, you shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations serve their gods under every green tree. So they attributed spiritual power being under trees, being protected by the tree god and all of that. Deuteronomy 12, verse 30, it says, do not inquire after their gods, saying, how did these nations serve their gods?

I also will do likewise. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. This is brought out in the sermon by Enrique, mentioning how he says, don't take a religious pagan feast or God and try to Christianize it. Try to make it biblical. It doesn't work. Deuteronomy 16, 21, it says, you shall not plant for yourself any tree as a wooden image near the altar which you build for yourselves to the Lord your God.

You're not going to use these idols there to worship when you go before God. So talking about not inquiring after their gods and practices, I'd like to now, if we can show a clip, can we show that clip from this famous evangelical minister in which he admitted what all of these Christmas origins and symbols, they're all pagan. And yet he says that, well, it's what's in your heart that's important.

God didn't say, well, go ahead and use these pagan symbols of the nations around you. We can listen here. David, who says, we have friends who do not celebrate Christmas because they say December 25th is really a pagan holiday. While I agree that Jesus may not have been born on December 25th, he certainly was born as described in the Bible. How do I respond to them? Well, in a sense, tell them they're right.

You see, the winter solstice a couple of days later was the shortest day of the year, and the pagans had something called Saturnalia, and it was a time of lawlessness because all the laws were suspended, and people, a bunch of singers actually wandered the streets naked singing, and then they had orgies, sexual orgies. It was a mass thing.

Well, when the Catholic Church came along in Italy, the Romans and others didn't want to give up their holidays, so they said, okay, we'll Christianize it. And so they said, okay, we'll say the birth of Jesus was the 25th of December. Then there was a monk who began to add it up. You see, if you read in Luke, it says there's a census taken when Carinius was governor and so forth and so on, and they could take those leaders and figure the exact time dating from the foundation of Rome, and that's when the dates were established.

And so they get pretty close to the date, but to say it's the 25th shepherd's route of biting in the field, it gets a little cold at night. I mean, were they out there in the middle of winter? I don't know. I think I've been out there on the shepherd's field on Christmas Eve. It's very nice, but it's cold. Nevertheless, I mean, what was going on? So all this business about mistletoe, pagan, Christmas trees, pagan, giving out gifts, pagan.

Every bit of it is pagan. Every single bit of it is cable. We've Christianized it all, and so that's good, and so we have time. We celebrate for Jesus. Everybody gets all misty-eyed, but the truth is they're all pagan. But the birth of Jesus... But the intent of the heart is what it's about. Exactly. So we have Christianized all these things. We give gifts in the name of Jesus.

We celebrate His birthday, and it's a nice thing. Okay. So anyways, He let the cat out of the bag, didn't He? Because He told the truth about that. But this idea of Christianizing something that is pagan, nobody has a right before God to do that. God warns us not to follow the customs of the nations and try to make them. Even in the Old Testament, God was saying, don't take those celebrations and make them according to my being worshipped.

He didn't say that. So I compare it to if you take a cow and you paint it just like a horse and you decorate it and make it into looks like a horse and everything, and then you go out and you say, well, it's a horse. No. Here, if you take a cow and you paint it like a horse, it's still a cow. You're not going to be able to convince people because of what it essentially is. So they're not worshiping Christ at this time. They're worshiping the god Saturnalia from Saturnalia, Saturn. And they just tried to adopt it in that way. It won't work, brethren. So let's continue. It says here that at least six, yeah, at least six scriptures mention the Israelites' disobedience by worshiping sacred trees.

1 Kings 14, 23. For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree, because that's the way the pagans did it. They thought there was power there, the god of the trees, and there was a fertility, there was going to be all kinds of good things that were going to happen to people.

2 Kings 16, 4. And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree. So they had these places. They thought the gods were closer to them on the high places, on hills, and under every green tree. 2 Kings 17, 10. They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. Continuing on, Isaiah 57 verse 5, it says, inflaming yourself with gods under every green tree. So they had all of these sexual rituals going on.

Slaying the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks. 5 Jeremiah 3, 13. Only acknowledge your iniquity that you have transgressed against the Lord your God and have scattered your charms to alien deities under every green tree. And you have not obeyed my voice, says the Lord. This upsets God very much. And then the sixth in the classic scripture which Enrique alluded to, Jeremiah 10 2 through 8, is a key scripture. It says, Thus says the Lord, do not learn the way of the Gentiles. And what do people do? They learn the way of the Gentiles. For their customs of the people are futile or vain.

They are lies, in other words. For one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with an axe, so he goes into forest, cuts it, brings it to the house. They decorate it with silver and gold. They fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not topple. Just like they do here. They use the wooden beams and put nails on it so that it'll have a stand.

They are upright like a palm tree. It doesn't say it's a palm tree, but they're straight. You don't want a crooked tree to bring to the house, right? They are upright. They must be carried because they cannot go by themselves. There's no magical powers in these trees. They can't walk. They are altogether dull-hearted and foolish people who do this. A wooden idol is a worthless doctrine. That's not part of God's way of life.

Let's continue. This has to do with another representation of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because that's where all of these false teachings come from. Christmas tree is a representation of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because it has to do with false teaching.

This is from The History of Christmas by Cherry Sicard. The exact origin of the Christmas tree seems under debate, but it is safe to say that this symbol evolved from pagan traditions. The Norse pagans and Celtic druids revered evergreens as manifestations of deity, because they did not, quote, die from year to year, but stayed green and alive when other plants appeared dead and bare. The trees represented everlasting life and hope for the return of spring. So that's behind the symbol of the Christmas tree. Next, here we have the painting of a Roman Saturnalia. This was painted and it's at the Getty Museum here in Los Angeles. It's called Saturnalia. Notice the holy wreaths or holly wreaths hanging on the walls and the heavy drinking going on. There's a lot of heavy drinking going on. Don't you think a lot of these liquor markers, aren't they just licking their chops? Because how much liquor is consumed in this next week or so? How many accidents? How many fights? How many murders? The murder rate goes up during this week. That's historically accurate.

And here's a quote from the History Channel on Christmas. It says, Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs. So again, we have these tree gods decorating the homes of people. That's where it all comes from. They think it's good luck. They think it honors that god Saturn.

And so we come to the concluding parts of this message. Which tree are we going to be partaking of? The tree of truth or the tree of lies? Do you remember when you made that decision to follow god's truths no matter what? That's what makes a true member of the church, the love of the truth. Once we know it is true, then we have a responsibility to observe it and to teach it to others as they are willing to listen. Next. And this is the tree we want to partake of one day. It is the tree of life in god's kingdom when the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven. Because it says you will taste there the fruits and it's going to be so fantastic. The tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will be destroyed forever. In people's minds, it'll be erased. They won't ever remember all the lies that they were taught throughout their lives.

So let's look at the principles to consider about Christmas. We have seven here. Number one. Remember, don't celebrate it for it displeases God. He has his own holy days that we should keep and not these counterfeit holidays that he detests. I don't keep them because my father doesn't want me to. He detests them. They're fakes. They deceive people. Number two. But be prudent and don't offend others. Remember Colossians 4, 5 through 6. This is from the contemporary English version. Very well translated. 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. I remember when I came in, I was so young, I didn't choose my words carefully. And I distanced my parents because I was trying to convert them. And I just pushed them farther and farther away from me until years later I was able to recover and build that relationship. Number three. Remind yourself when among the unconverted, you are only responsible for your own space among them and can't change what they do. So you can't change what people do. Some people are going to be keeping Christmas all around you, and they're going to be jolly and whatever. Well, just be discreet, but you're responsible for your own space, not for the space of others. And then, number four. It says, remember that, quote, no lie is of the truth. 1 John 2 21. Something, quote, pagan cannot be Christianized, for you can disguise a horse to look like a cow, but it's still a horse. Now we're going to change its real nature. Number five. The principle is you can accept gifts to avoid offending when that is the case, but not give them during this time to avoid being made an accomplice of a lie God detests. Number six. Bear in mind that we celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, where gifts are given. Besides, it is biblical and much better than any pagan Christian or Christmas. So we got this wonderful feast that is part of God's plan, and that we can share with others, and we are able to give gifts, help the poor. We've got all kinds of help for those that can't make it to the feast, and we pool resources. We're able to help the brethren. And the last point. Thus, this ends the tale of two trees. So let's keep our eyes on the right tree, the Tree of Life.