What Do God and Christ Think About Christmas?

Good to see all of you. Hope that you've been doing well. I'm hoping that I will be doing well at the end of the day. I basically have said that if I can make it through this day, because we have a course of Bible study right after this, and then go over to Stockton, that I probably could go to Zambia. I hate those kinds of decisions that come right up to the cusp, that you don't know what to do.

So I am stepping on in faith that God will help me to accomplish what we have to do. I know with His strength we will be able to do that. The book of Proverbs shouts, Who can find a virtuous woman? And it says, For her price is far above rubies. Isn't it a very difficult thing, brethren, to find a mate? To find a man if you're a woman looking for a mate, or a woman if you're a man looking for a mate?

Because it's just a hard thing to do. And when one finds a wonderful mate in this life, it's indeed a special blessing, which is priceless, according to the Scriptures. I mean, it is one of the most wonderful things in the world. And one of the things I think that the Bible even says that it's a gift of God, that God gives to us. If we are going to Him, if we're seeking Him, that He gives us, again, that mate that is going to be with us, that is going to be that complement to ourselves and our marriages that we have.

But you know what is amazing to think about? As shocking as it may seem, God has had a hard time finding a virtuous woman to marry. You'd think God would have all the answers, wouldn't you? That God would know who to marry. And God, though, has had a difficult time finding a good wife. God found Israel and gave her everything that a woman could desire. He poured down upon his wife. He married ancient Israel, and all Israel, as you know, committed adultery. By engaging in religious ways, God warned them not to follow. In fact, it's almost they went out of their way to do those things that were contrary to what God had told them to do.

And in the end, you know that God divorced adulterous Israel. Now, of course, in this time that we're in, Jesus Christ is betrothed to the church. I'm not going to go through and show that within the Scriptures. I know that you know that that is the case, according to the Bible. The reason why the church has been raised up is because it's going to be a bride of Jesus Christ. And he's given all of us all that we could ever want. You think about it. He's given us everything we could ever want as a people.

In fact, he has taken us from being no one. In other words, we were not a people, as the Bible says in the book of Hebrews. And, you know, the Bible indicates that other places. And he's made us into a people. He's made us into someone. You know, it's like, in a way, it's like a man going out who's a king and selecting a wife from a place.

A wife from, you might say, the sticks. You know, finding this young lady out in the sticks and then raising her up to be a queen within his domain. Well, that is what Jesus Christ has done for us, brethren. And we're going to be. The church is going to be the chaste bride that Christ will marry at his second coming. Now, God views things in a much greater way than we do. You know, if you ever go to a football game, you know, sometimes people want to be right down there on the 50-yard line.

And really, while you can see the players up close, you can't really see the whole game. Actually, you can probably see the game better at home in your living room. You know, some people spend so much money to go to a ball game. And the very best way to look at a game is to look at it from the top down, looking down on the game. And if you think about it, God has a view that is that way for mankind.

And he has seen the game, as it were, from the very beginning, and he will see it to the very end. He's seen all things from the beginning of the creation of time itself. And the creation then of man, the creation of all that God has made upon the face of the earth.

And he's seen every moment of the existence of human life. You think about that. He's seen every moment. He's seen every moment of your life and my life, too. He's seen it from the very beginning, you know, when we were not those kids, you know, then we didn't know, you know, our right from our left. And we couldn't tire chutes. He's seen us from the very beginning, all the way through.

And he's seen mankind again in that way, all the way through. And Christ Himself, Jesus Christ, as we know, is the Word that, you know, was used of God to create all things. And so Jesus Christ, who was, in fact, the Word prior to His coming, was the Creator of all life that was formed in fashion. And He formed in fashion Adam and Eve as absolute, perfect human specimens.

And God remembers Adam and Eve when they rejected Him, too. You know, when He was there in the Garden of Eden and they took of the tree, the forbidden tree, and they rejected God and God's authority. And He saw the demise of mankind from that time, from that time to the time of the flood where man had to be wiped out of existence.

And only eight people were saved, knowing His family. And eight and the entire planet were redeemable from the earth. And then He saw Israel be pulled out as they were out of Egypt. And they'd be brought forward and to be given His laws.

And He saw them reject His ways and turn to paganism and turn to other gods. Now, considering these things, brethren, and all that God has seen, and all that Jesus Christ has seen, and considering that Christ is going to marry the church, brethren, what does Jesus Christ think about Christmas? What does He think about Christmas? Now, that question is often asked that when we talk about Christmas, I know sometimes, you know, there can be family problems over the issue of Christmas.

But within the church, of course, we do not observe Christmas, but sometimes you have people that are married to mates that are not a part of the church. And they do observe Christmas, and there can be a conflict. But like Mr. Roy mentioned, we don't want to cram our religion down people's throat. That's not what God has called us to do. And, you know, we have to be gentle and nice with people. But again, we should not observe Christmas. But very often the question is asked, what's so wrong with keeping Christmas? I mean, what could be wrong with gift-giving?

What could be wrong with this spirit that oftentimes people have? You know, as long as we don't do any animal sacrifices or human sacrifices anymore, as long as we are worshipping Jesus, usually they say, Jesus. You know, with that. They say, so it comes from paganism, and we change Semiram, Mr. Mary, and Nimrod to Jesus. And so we use December 25th, which was Nimrod's birthday for Jesus Christ. What is so wrong with that? What's wrong with that? Well, what do you think, brethren? Is it the right approach?

Isn't that human reasoning? Isn't that the way people reason around and they try to decide to do something that they shouldn't do? You know, sometimes you can talk yourself into doing something you shouldn't do. That's what people do with this kind of thing. But, you know, the Bible warns us. I'm not going to go to these verses, but in Proverbs 14 and verse 12, it says, There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

So people can come up with a lot of bright ideas. They can reason around in hymn and haw about something. And God says that it may seem right. You know, what's so wrong with gift-giving and loving and all of that that's connected with Christmas, or so they say.

But in the end, it ends in death, as the Bible says. And in Jeremiah 17.9, I won't turn there either, it says, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and who can know it? Who can know it? One cannot know it who's trying to use human reasoning.

You know, they can know how the carnal mind works and how we tend to, again, reason around things. See, the carnal mind wants to reason around what God has instructed and go ahead and do its own thing. It wants to go ahead and do its own thing. And it will try to reason around it so it can come up with a plausible reason to do that. Again, the important question is, what does Jesus Christ think about Christmas? What does God think about Christmas? Because, after all, it's supposed to be worshiping God, isn't it?

It's supposed to be worshiping of Jesus. Well, let's rehearse the story from God's perspective, brethren. Let's go over to Exodus 19. Exodus 19. In verse 5 over here, here's what God told Israel that he wanted them to be aware of what he was going to do with them, how special they were to him. And, you know, I was talking about recently about how special your calling is. So there's a similarity here that we need to put together. But in Exodus 19 and verse 5, it says, And now therefore if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant.

So God was going to make a covenant with Israel. It's like a future husband and wife sit and talk about their future. I know my wife and I, before we got married, we talked about, you know, getting married and what we were going to do and how we were going to agree with each other about different things and how we were going to live our lives and so forth. Well, God is saying, look, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people. For all the earth is mine. Everything belongs to me, God said to them.

And you shall be to me a kingdom, a priest, and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. And so Moses came and called for the elders of the people and laid before them all these words which the Lord commanded him.

And then all the people answered together and said, all that the Lord has spoken we will do. So Moses brought back the words of the people to the eternal. And so they said everything that he said we're going to do. It's like a future husband talking to his fiance and saying, well, if we do these things, then we're going to have a wonderful marriage.

And she says, oh, yes, let's do them. Let's go through life. Let's grow old together. Let's have a wonderful marriage. And so they said, pretty much, I do. I do accept this. And so here God saw this and what they did. And so God entered a marriage covenant with Israel and had expectations of his new wife. And not only that, he says, look, I'm going to tell you, the earth is mine. It belongs to me.

And if the earth is mine, then it means that you have nothing to ever worry about again, that you're going to be blessed beyond what you can even imagine. And so God entered into that marriage covenant. Let's go over to to Ezekiel 16. I think it's a beautiful, poignant story over here that I love to read because it shows how tender God was with Israel. How he treated her, how he did for her, what nobody else would do.

In Ezekiel 16 and down in verse 8, let's notice here. It says, and when I pass by you, speaking of Israel, and again, this is in her infancy. She was just starting. It says, when I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love. So I spread my wing over you and covered your nakedness. And yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became mine, says the Lord God. And then I washed you in water.

Yes, I thoroughly washed off your blood, and I anointed you with oil. It's like God said, I cleaned you up. You know, maybe, I don't know, I get the impression here that Israel was like this, you might say, orphan child. You know, thrown out, dirty, rejected the world, not much in the eyes of man at all, and God took her and he cleaned her up.

And I clothed you with embroidered cloth and gave you sandals to badger skin. I clothed you with fine linen and covered you with silk. You know, I can imagine, by the way, that what he's talking about and thinking about here is some of the finest craftsmanship when it came to sandals.

You know, when I was able to travel to Thailand, I saw these purses that were made by hill people, you know, in museums. And I'll tell you, you would have to have probably a powerful microscope to do what these people did with their human eye.

And I just would look at these purses and I would think that probably you couldn't touch one of those things for probably $50,000 today, made by some helpers. But I can imagine God is thinking about, this is what I did, I gave you a badger skin. You know, what do we think when we think of a badger skin? Or you killed a badger, you skinned the thing and threw it over the woman. Okay. No! Let's not think in terms of that. It was like a meek soul that God gave to the woman.

He adorned her with these wonderful things, clothed her with the finest silk. You know, imagine again the silk, how beautiful it can be. And I adorned you with ornaments, with jewelry. But put bracelets on your wrists and chain on your neck. I put a jewel in your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. And it says, thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate pastry of the flower and honey and oil.

You were exceedingly beautiful and succeeded to royalty. You became royalty. And it says, your fame went out. This woman that God had found, these people that God had found, who were again like the dirty orphan child, then he transformed this woman into such a beauty that the fame went out among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through my splendor, which I had bestowed upon you, says the Lord God. In other words, I made you into this beautiful choice, person, nation, to the nations of this world.

And so this is what happened that God did with ancient Israel. And let's keep going on down through it. As you trusted, though, in your beauty, you began to trust in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame, and poured out your harlot free on everyone passing by who would have it. Now, so this woman that he had brought up became a harlot in her conduct. You took some of your garments and adorned multi-colored high places for yourself and played the harlot on them. Such things should not happen nor be. And you have also taken your beautiful jewelry from my gold and my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images and played the harlot with them.

And he says, you took your embroidered garments and covered them and set up my oil at my incense before them, and also my food which I gave you, the pastry of the fine flour, oil and honey which I fed you. And you set it before them as a sweet incense, so it was, says the Lord God.

Moreover, you took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me, those children that came from our union, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. What a atrocious thing! And it says, were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you assuane my children and offered them up to them by causing them the pass of the fire?

And in all your abomination, the acts of harlotry, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare and struggling in your blood. You didn't remember that. And so you know the story and the account of what happened literally with, you know, this is figurative, of course, that literally with Israel, Israel was forgotten, her utter depravity, and as a result of it, God had come to the point where the marriage began to falter and he had to make some decisions about the nation of Israel.

Let's go over to Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 3. You know, a marriage union is a very important institution between a husband and a wife, and God valued that marriage between himself and Israel. But in Jeremiah 3, it says in verse 1, they say, if a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's, may he return to her again. And he said, would not the land be greatly polluted? No, you can't do that, he's saying.

But you have played the harlot with many lovers. Yet return to me, says the Lord. So God was willing to even take her back, even though she had been this harlot and played this harlot, God was willing to take her back. It says, lift up your eyes to the desolate heights of the sea. Where have you not lain with men? Think about that. Where haven't you committed adultery? Where haven't you been a harlot?

Like an Arabian in the wilderness, and you have polluted the land with your harlot trees and your wickedness. Now notice down here in verse 8, it says, Then I saw that for all the causes for which back-signing Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorcement. Yet her treasure sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also. So Israel did it first, and then Judah followed suit after that.

And so there was so much infidelity that finally God gave a bill of divorce to Israel, to Israel and Judah. And so he divorced himself from them, and God put Israel away. And then God foretold, look, the time is going to come, the time is going to come that I'm going to make a new marriage.

I'm going to have a new marriage covenant in the future, but it's going to be a different one altogether. It's not going to be as it was with Israel. Let's go over to Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah 31. God said it's going to be different, and it won't be like it was with physical Israel. But in chapter 31, in verse 31, you know this prophecy here, brethren.

But in Jeremiah 31, verse 31, here it says, So God is still not given up, you think about it, on the house of Israel. He hasn't given up, you know, on his past make, if you will. But he said, And so God says, I'm going to write it on the hearts of those that are going to be a part of my future mate, my bride, you know, for the future. And so a new covenant would be entered into, and only those who would do this. And that is to internalize, brethren, God's laws and God's way of life could be a part of that marriage.

And, you know, it will not be by birth. It will not be by birth at all. But it is going to be by every individual internalizing God's laws and God's ways before that marriage ever takes place. And God set out then, after that, to make a new covenant with Israel from the heart. It was going to be a different kind of covenant altogether. And God called people, and has called people. He's given them forgiveness of sins. And He's given them His Holy Spirit, as we understand.

And the church was founded, remember, in 31 A.D. And Jesus said, I will build my church. And He said, the gates of the Gehenna, or the gates of the grave, I should say, will not prevail against it. In other words, the church would never die that He was going to establish His church, and that church would always be.

And so the early New Testament church was founded, and the early New Testament church loved Jesus Christ. And the church grew rapidly, expanded. They loved their future husband. And God, through Jesus Christ, let's go over to Luke 19, spoke certain parables to those that would be disciples about what was going to happen this time with this particular marriage.

What was going to occur? It would not be like, again, with ancient Israel. It would be different in the sense that it would be, again, something from the heart. But God, through Jesus Christ, spoke a parable. And notice here in verse 11, it says, Now as they heard these parables, He spoke another parable. He said, This is the way it's going to be, talking about the kingdom of God, because He was near Jerusalem, and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately.

So they thought the kingdom was going to be set up right away. But no, it was going to be that way. But here's the way it was going to be. Therefore, He said, A certain nobleman went to a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. And so, this nobleman, of course, is Jesus Christ. He would go into a far country, and then He would return. So there would be a passage of time. And so He called ten of the servants, delivered them ten minas, and said to them, Do business till I come, or occupy until I come. In other words, Jesus Christ founded the church, and now He was gone into a far country.

But He's going to return. He's going to come back. In the meantime, He expects us to be occupied about doing preparation for His return until He returns. And that we would be faithful servants in that duration of time.

And that Jesus Christ left us, brethren, with directions of how He wants us to live based upon God's laws and God's commandments. And so He's gone into a far country. And so when you and I pray, Christ, we know, is at the right hand of the Father. He's not far away when we want to talk to Him.

But He is a far country. He has not received the kingdom yet. It will be given to Him when He returns, and it's proclaimed that He is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings when He returns the second time. But He will have prepared a people that will be ready for Him when He returns.

And those people will be the bride of Jesus Christ who have the law embedded inside of them. It's a part of them. In other words, they don't need necessarily a book to tell them by the time that's embedded inside of them. You know, oh, well now what did that say there? They know what it says. They know what the commandments are because they've studied them. You know, they've done the Bible reading program.

You know, they've done the Bible study. They know what the Bible says. They've been culcated inside of themselves so that they know. Now, the problem has been is while Jesus Christ as that nobleman has been away from the time the church was founded in 31 A.D., people began to choose their own methods of worship of God.

So when that church was established, things went well for the first several years. But after a while, people began to choose their own methods of the worship of God. And I'm not going to go there, but in Jude 3 and verse 4, you'll find it talks about how certain men crept into the church. It says this in 2 Peter 2.1 as well. But certain men crept into the church and they began to pollute the church with false ideas and false doctrines. And so very early this began to happen. So people began to worship God as they chose, not as God instructed them to obey Him. In the early church, God was a very personal God. He was very personal. We tried to teach in the church of God to have an Abba Father relationship. And I hope that, brethren, your prayers, that God is personal to you too, that you're never alone, that you know you can call upon God, that He's there, that He hears your prayers. But to the people of the early church, brethren, God was a very personal God. They did hold the concept, Paul taught it, that God was an Abba Father, a Daddy Father, that you could talk to, that you could communicate with. And to them, the return of Christ was near in their minds. They thought it could happen. Well, Christ had to tell them the parable just so they wouldn't think that the kingdom was going to be established then, right then. So it was very personal to them. And of course, Paul had to later on tell them that certain things had to happen before Christ can return. And so God was more personal to them. And they realized that they were a bride waiting for her husband to return very soon. John wrote what he did about the bride in the book of Revelation chapter 19. And also that the bride is to be perfectly beautiful before Jesus Christ and righteous, pure and white. The church had to be white. It had to be free of sin. That God's people at that time were very devoted and striving to overcome sin. That was the way it was in the early church, brethren. And again, eventually turned at a particular point. Particularly, things began to really change during the time of John and after that point. John had a great battle. In order for Satan to succeed in his attempt to thwart God's plan, he had to do this. He had to depersonalize God. He had to depersonalize God. And so Satan brought Greek philosophers in to recreate God in their image. You can read about that in Romans chapter 1, about how you have these philosophers who deny God. And so Satan brought these Greek philosophers in to corrupt. And so what happens is God becomes an amorphous, remote, unapproachable being.

You know, if you can make God seem far away, you know, Satan thought, then you can feel much freer to make him in your own image. You can make him what you want to make him of. And this is what man did, and he made God into a creeping thing, into an image that is a sticker, a stone idol. That's what man began to do. And so initially what was used was Greek philosophy, people like Plato and Aristotle, that was brought into the church, that began to pollute the church. I want to read to you what it says here. This is a history about one of the late, it's a late second century teacher. Late, actually this particular man was born about 150 AD around there. And so he would have gone probably past the year 200. His name was Clement of Alexandria, and he was a very important teacher, theologian. I don't want to say he was a Christian, but I will put Christian in quotes. A Christian theologian of Alexandria. I don't know if you've ever studied anything about the teachers down in Egypt, but Mr. Armstrong used to call Alexandria the hotbed of heresy. That's where all the heresy came from down there. But this is what the history says about Clement of Alexandria. Clement's doctrine of creation in some ways owed more to Plato than Moses. Kind of reminds me of when, you know, in a former association, that they wanted to begin to bring all these changes in. You know what they started with? They started with Greek philosophy and the Trinity. The Trinity is how they worked it out. Most of what was taught by Dr. Stavarnides, quite frankly, came out of the Catholic Orthodox Church, or the Orthodox Catholic Church. Typically what they teach, and a lot of that came out of Greek philosophy.

But here he's saying, Clement, going back to 200 AD or so, Clement's doctrine owed more to Plato than Moses. Clement has been represented as a true-going Hellenizer. In other words, a Greek, he tried to push the Greek philosophy. Who trimmed the Christian faith to suit an alien philosophy.

He therefore appealed to them by blending Scripture and Homer. They put Scripture and Homer. You've always got somebody like that that's able to sort of blend things together and maybe make it sound more exciting. And then people sort of eat it with a spoon. He was the connecting link, if you want to find the connecting link, between Christianity and Greek thought. It was Clement of Alexander.

And Clement, by the way, of Alexandria taught the great historian, Oraja. If you've done anything about church history, Oraja is one of the greatest church history teachers that impacted the church that became Catholic. Now what happened also, brethren, is eventually anti-Semitic hatred began to grow in the early church. Because what happened initially when the church was founded, it was Jewish. And what happened, as the church expanded and more and more Gentiles were added to the church, there was an anti-Semitic approach that began to come around within the church. And so it was easier for church members to adopt the beliefs of the pagan Roman religions around them than it was for them to hold on to what God had required of them, much of which was more similar to the religion of the Jews, like the Holy Days, like the Sabbath, clean unclean meats, other things like that.

And so you can see why these sayings began to be rejected and being tossed aside, just much like, in fact, what happened, again, on our former association. And so over a slow process at that time, God's laws began to be rejected in favor of substitutes. In other words, we're going to reject this law and we're going to substitute this law. And again, it happened in our time, as we have seen.

That shortly after the death of Herbert Armstrong, God's laws were jettisoned from our former association, and the church began to observe Christmas and began to observe Easter. That was brought in. And the truth, in other words, was tossed out right and left, and false doctrine then began to be flooded into the church. And hence, that's why the United Church of God came about. That's why we're here, because of what happened then. And also, grace then became a license. As the Bible talks about, license to do pretty much what you want to do. And this is also what began to happen shortly after, brethren, the death of the Apostle John.

John held the fort. Up until the time he passed off the scene, then after John was gone, false teachers who had crept into the church began to emerge and began to stand up. And eventually, the church began to syncretize or homogenize false doctrines on into the church. Now, we know that for a fact from history that talks about, you know, in fact, how that Easter was syncretized into the church.

I'm talking about what eventually became the Catholic Church, because eventually God's people had to leave. They had to get out of that. And as people entered the church, they didn't leave their old pagan worship. So in order to save them, the church compromised so that the pagan Romans could be attracted to the church. And so God was changed in the image of pagan gods. That's how it happened, and that is how it occurred. I want to read to you what the New Catholic Encyclopedia says. The article is Christmas and its cycle, and it says, Inexplicable though it seems, the date of Christ's birth is not known.

Oh, that's amazing! I thought it was December 25th! You know, of course, if you think I believe that, you may also think I believe in Santa Claus as well. The Gospels indicate neither the day nor the month, according to the hypothesis accepted by most scholars today, the birth of Christ was assigned the date. It was assigned the date of the winter solstice, which is December 25th in the Julian calendar and January 6th in the Egyptian. Because on this day, as the sun began its return to the northern skies, the pagan devotees of Mithrae celebrated the Natalis Solus Invicta, which means this, the birthday of the invisible sun, S-U-N, of the invincible sun.

Going on, from pre-Christian times during the season of the solstice, the Romans engaged in their boisterous feast of the Saturnalia, which was December 17th through 23rd, I should say. So yesterday was the end of the Saturnalia season. Hope you didn't get caught up in that too much. They did this in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. Also, the expansion of the Roman Empire introduced Oriental cults, which worshiped the Persian sun god Mithrae, whose birthday was celebrated on December 25th.

Oh, what a coincidence here! It was on December 25th. Nimrata is on December 25th, Mithrae is on December 25th. I wonder if they connected at all, you know, those two. It goes on. Brumalia and Saturnalia are connected together in Rome. Brumalia celebrated the shortest day of the year, and the Saturnalia celebrated the time of the winter solstice. Brumal means winter or the shortest day of the year.

Staldanalia came to mean unrestrained, orgiastic indulgence in the Riverway. Now, this is from Hislop's Two Babylons. I'm sure all of you know Alexander Hislop's work on the Two Babylons. But this is what he says. That thessal of Rome was called the Feast of Saturn, and the mode in which it was celebrated there showed whence it had been derived. The feast was regulated by Caligula.

You know who Caligula is, don't you? The most corrupt, sexually morally deprived Roman emperor that probably ever sat on the throne and was a Caesar. And Rome was Caligula. And it lasted for five days. Loose reigns were given to drunkenness and revelry. Slaves had a temporary emancipation and used all men of freedoms with their masters. This was precisely the way in which, according to Barosis, the drunken festival of the month of Tibet, answering to our December, in other words, the Festival of Bacchus. So when people are observing Christmas, they're observing the Festival of Bacchus.

And it says, it was celebrated in Babylon, going all the way back to Babylon. And it says, the candles in some parts of England, lighted on Christmas Eve and used so long as the festive season lasted, were equally lighted by the pagans on the eve of the Festival of Babylonian God to do honor to him. For it was one of the distinguishing peculiarities of his worship to have lighted wax candles on his altar.

The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in pagan Rome and pagan Egypt. Some people, by the way, will tell you that, well, the Christmas tree goes back in Christianity to Martin Luther. That's idiotic. Totally idiotic. Apparently, Martin Luther was out on a stroll, and he saw a fir tree, and he thought it was majestic, and it's an evergreen tree, and so he took it back, and he began to decorate it. Some say that, again, he introduced the Christmas tree into Christianity. My point, though, I think about that would be, even if that is the case, what difference does it make?

You know, isn't there a law about images? Isn't there a law? It doesn't really matter if it was Martin Luther or if it was John Lennon or whoever it would be. If they do something like that, it would be contrary to God's law. Now, the new encyclopedia continues. Christmas originated at a time when the cult of the sun was particularly strong at Rome. Though the substitution of Christmas for the pagan festival cannot be proved, it remains the most plausible explanation for the dating of Christmas.

This is what the Catholics say, by the way, and they're probably the ones that did it. They're the ones that were responsible. Interesting. It was not until 354 AD that we had the first clear reference to December 25th being regarded as the anniversary of Christ's birth. You think about it. The church was founded in 31 AD. It was not until 354 AD, over 300 years later, that the anniversary of Christ's birth was celebrated on December 25th.

And you know where they found it? In a Roman almanac. In a Roman almanac. And it mentions the year and it mentions the date. And so three centuries passed with no record of the church commemorating the birth of Christ. This is from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Volume 3. The article is Christmas that is there. They say there can be little doubt that the church was anxious to distract the attention of Christians from the old heathen feast days by celebrating Christian festivals on the same days. I think it would be ludicrous in extremes to use the same day to worship God as the pagans did.

But again, the question is, what does God, what does Jesus Christ think of this practice? What does he think of this practice? Think it'd be all right with him for us to do this? Can we really know? Some, I'm sure, would be so smart as to say, well, we can't say God. Is this all right? Not going to get an answer that way, are you? What does God think about the music also that is often associated with Christmas? You know how you can walk down through a mall and you can't get away with it?

I haven't been in a mall. I really haven't been in a mall. You know, since this season, so I haven't heard it. But usually, we've got the Christmas music going, you know, in the background. And, you know, sometimes if you listen to that stuff enough, you go home and you get in bed and you'll start sleeping and you've got this stuff going around in your head. But let's go over to Amos 5. Music is a very important thing in the mind of God. And God gave certain music to Amos 5 over here. But God gave certain things to Israel, gave them talent, certainly, to make music.

David was a great composer of at least the lyrics of music, the book of Psalms or songs themselves. But in the book of Amos, let's notice over here, if I can find Amos in my Bible. I'm sure it is here. It didn't disappear from my Bible. So usually this one is trained to go right to it, but I don't know.

I had another Bible that was trained, by the way, but it started falling apart on me. Sort of like me, you know, I'm falling apart. But Amos 5 in verse 21, notice this. And it says, God says, I hate, I despise your feast day. Some people try to say that God is talking here through Amos about the feasts of God. He's not talking about the feasts of God. He's talking about their feasts. And it says, I do not savor your sacred assemblies, though you offer me burnt offerings and your grain offerings. I will not accept them, nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings.

Take away from me the noise of your songs. I don't like the noise of your songs. You know, songs should ring true, shouldn't they, of being truthful. For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. So God did not like the music connected with it. But let's justice and run down like water, and righteous is like a mighty stream.

You offer me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness, 40 years, O house of Israel. He says, you also carried sikuf, your king, and shein, your idols, the scar of your gods, which you made for yourselves. And so here they had these idols.

Therefore, you know, because you make this music, because you have these days which I hate that you're observing, therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts. And so God's reaction, by the way, even to the music, the noise, he calls it, that they make at their festivals, he says, what I'm going to do is send you into captivity beyond Damascus. That's what I think of, you know, your festivals, and that's what I think of your music. You know, even though you can talk to people about, you know, things like this, and I've done it in giving sermons, I've had people come up and say, you know, but what's so wrong with Christmas, even after you go through all of this kind of thing, you discuss these things?

As long as we use Jesus's name, as long as we do that, you know, can we worship Him the way, this way? What would be so wrong with worshiping Him this way? What's wrong with changing, you know, the Samaritan to Mary? What's wrong with changing Him rod to Christ, to Jesus Christ? What's so wrong with these things? Well, you know, what Jesus Christ said? Himself. He said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, there are going to be a lot of people who use the name of Jesus Christ, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but He who does the will of my Father in heaven.

In other words, the ones that are going to be the true servants of God and the disciples of Jesus Christ are those who do what God commands us to do. And it says, many will say to me in that day, this time is going to come, Jesus Christ said, some are going to say to me in that day. And He said, many are going to say this.

Many will have, you know, this on their mind. Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your names? Your name. Cast out demons in Your name and done many wonders in Your name. You've seen what people do in this world, brethren, and Christ is going to have to say, depart from me, I never knew you. I didn't know you, because you didn't do the will of God. You know, the same again can be said today with people who use Jesus Christ's name. Some are going to use Jesus's name all day long, every day, and it will do them no good.

Whatsoever. Because God remembers. God remembers the origin of Christmas, and the origin of Easter, and all of these things. He remembers. He's not like us. You know, sometimes I think we are like 15 seconds. You know, I was doing some work around the house yesterday, preparing for the Sabbath.

And I laid an announcement on the site board where I said, I've got to come back and get this. And I wanted to see if I was still sharp enough to come to church today. I said, well, if I can remember that, and do the other things I'm going to do, then I'll be able to do okay tomorrow.

So I went over and I started doing the things that I needed to do. It took me about 30 seconds to do it. I'm telling you, by the time I got over to there, I almost walked past that piece of paper that I intended to pick up. I thought, what is wrong with you? I think it's because we live in the 21st century. That's why our tension spans are so, so small. But, you know, we can use, you know, our minds in such a way that, you know, we think we're doing the right thing.

We can think we're thinking in the right way, but we're thinking in the wrong way. You know, mankind has never wanted to obey God. He just simply has not ever wanted to obey God. He'd rather not keep the commandments at all than keep the fourth commandment. He'd rather throw out all of the Bible rather than keep the Holy Days. He would rather do that. That's what mankind does. And as a result, man is latched onto these days that have been around for a long, long time, since 2,000 years before Christ.

You know what Jesus Christ said to the Jews of his day? He says, in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. It's vain. The word vain, of course, means useless, totally useless. Let's go over to Deuteronomy 12. Deuteronomy 12.

In verse 29, you'll hear, Moses said, When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, when he brings you into the land, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? And I also will do likewise. He said, Don't even give that a thought. It's amazing. In our former association, by the way, when they began to reject the Holy Days, some had the gall to actually say that God took the Holy Days from Egyptian pagan festivals. I thought, you want to put the branch to the nose of God a little more here? That was an outrageous statement that was. God would not do that. He commanded Israel not to do that. And it says, And you shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. For every abomination to the Eternal which he hates, they have done to their gods, for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it, and that you shall not add to it or take away from it. How clear could it be? You know, Mom and Dad leave, and some of you young people, they, you know, Mom and Dad leave, and they say, Well, look, we're going to leave you with this house here, but we don't want you to have a party when we're gone. We don't want you to tear the house up or burn it down. You know, do you think that parents mean what they're saying? I think what God is saying here, he means what he says, doesn't he? Don't do that. Don't do that. Now, hopefully our teens are not the kind that would do it anyway, but Israelites were of that mentality. Brethren, God doesn't change his way of thinking. He doesn't change his way of thinking today. And we should not mimic the pagans and how they worship their gods. Let's go to Jeremiah. Jeremiah 10. It's been a while since we've gone to Jeremiah 10, hasn't it? But Jeremiah 10 is a good one to remember all the time if somebody tries to come and tell you, you know, what's wrong with Christmas. But in Jeremiah 10 in verse 5, it says, Hear the word which the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. In other words, listen up. Thus says the Lord, Do not learn the way of the Gentiles. Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, you know, the signs of the zodiac and astrology and so forth. For the Gentiles are dismayed at them. And by the way, the term Gentile, it's not a derogatory thing, but just simply a non-Israelite. That's what it means. And it says, Don't be dismayed by those things. For the customs of the people are futile. They're useless. 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 topple. Sound familiar to anything that people do today? I mean, I drove by up here on Broadway, and they're still selling the Christmas trees out there. You know, right up to the last minute, boy, I'll tell people to put it off, don't they? But this thing I applaud if they put it off and not do. But it says they are upright, like the palm tree. In Egypt, by the way, they use the palm tree. And it says, And they cannot speak, they must be carried, because they cannot go by themselves. Do not be afraid of them. For they cannot do evil, nor can they do any good.

You know, I had one man that told me that, well, this is not a tree, but it is a wooden idol.

And frankly, I don't see the difference. Do you?

I mean, if it's a tree, or whether it's an idol. You can carve an idol from a log and make it into an idol, and put gold on it, and so we can make it really small.

Or you can decorate a tree. It's the same thing. In other words, they're both still idols. And God does not want us to be involved in the worship of such things. Brethren, how sensible is it for a man to imitate this and tell God that he better accept it, because we want to celebrate Jesus' birthday anyway. How sensible is that?

Does it make any sense, brethren, to recreate a ceremony condemned in the Bible?

Does it make any sense to be even anything like what is in the Bible that God condemns? That doesn't make sense to me. I'm sorry. It simply will not do. But, you know, even in spite of that, brethren, there are people that are going to do it. You could show them the truth. I saw a Peanuts article, a cartoon, the other day. And you may not have known, but Charles Shultz, I should say, who's now dead. But Charles Shultz at one time was a plain truth receiver. He took the plain truth. But this particular cartoon was condemning Christmas. It was the true story of Christmas.

And somebody passed it on to me. And I'll tell you, you could take that little cartoon that was, you know, a few panels. And you could prove Christmas was pagan from it. But anyway, some people can be shown the truth, and it still doesn't matter. They're going to go ahead and do it. That was the way Israel was. Let's go to Jeremiah 44 over here in verse 17.

Here, the obstinate attitude, the rebellious attitude that is there clearly in Judah and Israel. Israel first, of course, and then Judah. But in Jeremiah 44 verse 17 it says, and this is what they say, but we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our mouth, out of our own mouth. We're going to do it. We're going to do it.

Now think about what they're saying here. They're saying, look, it's because we started obeying God that we have all these troubles, all this trouble. Of course, that wasn't the case at all because they had no-baid God. They had no-baid God.

But it says, but since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring our drink offerings to her, we've lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.

And the women also said, and when we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make cakes for her to worship her and pour out drink offerings to her without our husband's permission?

They went right ahead in rebellion and did it themselves.

And it says, then Jeremiah spoke to all the people, the men, the women, and all the people who had given him that answer, saying, The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your princes and the people of the land, did not the Lord, the Eternal, remember them and did it not come into his mind so that the Eternal could no longer bear it.

He could no longer bear it. God was patient, but he could not bear it anymore because of the evil of your doings and because of the abominations which you committed. Therefore, your land is desolation, an astonishment, a curse, and without an inhabitant as it is this day.

Because you have burned incense and because you ascend against the Eternal and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord or walked in his law, his statutes or in his testimonies, therefore this calamity has happened to you as it is this day.

And so, again, exactly what I mentioned before, they had not obeyed God.

And Jeremiah is saying, look, don't you think God noticed that you were burning all these incense to false gods? Don't you think he noticed that?

And he couldn't bear it anymore? He couldn't take it anymore? It's like a husband, if he had a wife that was, you know, going into heartless. You get the point? He said, I can't take it anymore. Too many sleepless nights, too much anguish.

And, you know, the Queen of Heaven, by the way, is mentioned here as Semiramis or a starte.

And a starte is connected also with Easter worship.

I'm not going to go over to Ezekiel 8, but if you want to add that in there, that includes Easter because they were observing Easter, watching the sun rise, you know, in the east.

And God says that it was abomination to him.

Brethren, how could it make any sense to say that God's holy days that He gave and that He commanded are a burden to us?

You know, again, what does God think of this? What does He think of this? Let's go to Jeremiah 23. In Jeremiah 23, in verse 1, this is what God thinks of the shepherds who have misled people, you know, here in the United States over the centuries that have passed and other nations as well.

Woe to the shepherds! These are, by the way, the pastors of the land. They're going to be held accountable and they're going to be responsible.

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, says the Lord.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed my people.

You have scattered my flock and driven them away and not attended to them because, behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings, says the Eternal.

So God says, I'm going to take care of you for what you have done.

And it says, but I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries where I've driven them and bring them back to their folds and they shall be fruitful and increase.

And I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking, says the Eternal.

I think this is a message right here, brethren, to the pastors of the United States of America, in the churches of this world, to be put on notice that they are going to be held accountable in the future for what they've done in driving people away from God, making them not obey God and go God's way of life. God says, I'm going to take care of you for what you've done and I'm going to go and I'm going to get a rib to the people that have been driven to all these places.

And they're going to be brought back and they're going to be have shepherds put on over them that are going to teach the truth to them.

And, you know, God is already working on that, by the way, he's already working on that. And they're sitting right here that God is working on.

Verse 16, going down to verse 16, thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, so-called prophets, of course. They make you worthless. They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the eternal.

You know, what they say is from their own heart. And they continually say to those who despise me, the Lord has said, you shall have peace.

And to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, no evil should come upon you. Isn't that what happens to people? Oh, you don't need to worry about those commandments. You know, Jesus came and died, and we're under grace. We don't have to keep any old law, you know, like that.

Oh, yeah, and we, those old covenant things, you know, Holy Days and the Sabbath, you don't want to do that. You know, we have rest in the Lord.

We've got rest in the Lord, and we're going to have rest in the Lord when we're all in heaven. Oops, wait a minute. Some of these things are not in the Bible. They come from people's minds.

Verse 23. He said, Am I a God near in hand, says the Eternal, and not a God far off?

You know, am I near in hand? Or am I far off? Am I far off? Have you ever been in a situation, brethren, where you're talking about somebody who's close by, and they hear what you're saying, and then they say to you, I hear what you're saying about me?

Well, you know, God is that way. He's there. He hears what we're saying. He sees what we do. God's not far off. He may... symbolically, Christ has gone into a far country, brethren, but He's not far off for us. He's not far off for us.

Verse 25. I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.

Oh, how long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart.

This is who try to make my people forget my name by their dreams, which everyone tells his neighbor, as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.

Well, anciently, this happened, too, God says, when they rejected me for Baal.

The prophet who has a dream let him tell a dream. He who has my word let him speak my word faithfully.

What is the chaff to the wheat, says the Eternal.

Is not my word like a fire, says the Eternal, and like a hammer, that it breaks the rock in pieces?

Therefore, behold, I am against the prophet, says the Eternal, who steal my words, every one from his neighbor.

Behold, I am against the prophet, says the Eternal, who use their tongues and say, He says, Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams, says the Eternal, and tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies and by their recklessness.

Yet I did not send them or command them. Therefore, they shall not profit this people at all.

And so, when these people or the prophet, the priest, asks, say, What is the oracle of the Eternal? You shall then say to them, What oracle?

And I will even forsake you, says the Eternal.

Again, what is the oracle of God? They don't know the oracles of God.

And it says, For the prophet, and the priest, and the people who say the oracle of the Eternal, I will even punish that man in his house.

Thus, every one of you shall say to his neighbor, and every one to his brother, What has the Lord answered, and what has the Lord spoken?

The oracle of the Eternal you shall mention no more.

For every man's word will be his oracle, for you have perverted the words of the living God, the Lord of hosts our God.

Thus, you shall say to the prophet, What has the Lord answered you, and what has the Lord spoken?

But since you say the oracle of the Lord, therefore they thus says the Eternal, because you say this word, the oracle of the Lord, in other words, they claim that something is the oracle of God, this is from God, in other words, when it is really not.

And it says, And I have sent you, do not say the oracle of the Eternal.

Therefore, behold, I even I will utterly forget you and forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and will cast you out of my presence, and I will bring an everlasting reproach on you in a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.

But again, what does God think of Christ?

I hope, brethren, we can see that God was not pleased with people doing their own thing when it comes to His laws, His commandments, and His statutes.

Some people teaching the Sabbath and the Holy Days are a burden, or that's an abomination to God, because God gave His Sabbath and His Holy Days, and they are not a burden.

And we really suffer, don't we, in the church every single year.

Go off to the feast, I'm just going to Hawaii this year.

Brethren, it was so bad.

I mean, just for 10 days, I run on the beach, and, you know, salt water got in my eyes.

Boy, it was so, so bad.

Of course, I'm being facetious, because it was wonderful.

And since the day that I know I entered within the church, obeying God, keeping His commandments and His Holy Days has been such a great blessing in so many ways.

So, brethren, we as the future bride of Jesus Christ need to make God's holy laws a part of our internal character.

Frankly, we don't have room, and should not have room in our heart for Christmas.

We don't have room for Easter. We don't have room for Halloween.

Unbelievable that that is a holiday that's even observed.

You see how people have a carte blanche. They can do whatever they want.

We should walk in God's ways because we believe the same things our future husband has taught us.

And embracing them with our whole hearts, we are embracing Christ also as our husband.

We are not looking elsewhere for relationship because we are fulfilled in the love that we have for Jesus Christ and for God's way of life.

So, brethren, considering the original question that I asked at the very beginning, what does God and Jesus Christ think about Christmas?

I think the future bride of Christ should know what her husband really thinks.

Well, brethren, if I head off to Zambia, and I'll know at the end of the day whether that's going to happen, and my wife and I will see you when we get back.