What Is Spiritual Adultery?

Well, just a few weeks away is the annual holiday called Christmas, followed by New Year's Eve celebrations. Why is it that we will not be celebrating Christmas during these days? What's with you, Church of God people, anyway? Is it because we're cheap? Is it because we're antisocial? Is it because we are mean and cruel to children? Is it because we're opposed to having fun? Is it because we are related by blood to Ebenezer Scrooge?

Well, anyone who has ever watched us observe God's Holy Days, especially the Feast of Tabernacles, knows that those comments are absolutely not true. The reason we do not celebrate these fall holidays, Christmas particularly, is because of our knowledge of God and who He is, and because of a special relationship we have with the Father. So let's begin today by having a brief review, and this is just a brief review of the roots and the history of the holiday that most of the world celebrates, particularly here in our part of the world, celebrates called Christmas.

I'm going to begin by just reading something from the Catholic Encyclopedia. Since, basically, the Catholic Church invented Christmas, they were the first ones to designate a holiday called Christmas. I would assume that they know what they're talking about. So let me read a few sentences here. This is from the Catholic Encyclopedia under the article, Christmas. Quote, Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Arrhenius, who died around 200 AD, by the way. Arrhenius and Tertullian, he died around 220 AD, admitted from their list of feasts.

So, in other words, they listed what all the church feasts were, and they didn't include Christmas. And this was around 200 AD. So this is more than 150 years after Jesus Christ had died. They're not recognizing, they're not acknowledging Christmas, these so-called early Church Fathers. Another early Church Father, Arnobius, who died around 330 AD, in his writings, ridiculed the Romans, quote, birthday of the gods, speaking of the Saffronelia, in which on December 25th the Romans celebrated the birth of Mithra, one of the pagan gods.

And as late as 330 AD, this Church Father was ridiculing the celebrations of birthdays of gods. So that's from the Catholic Encyclopedia. Now I'd like to go to an interesting site called CARM, Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. I found this on CARM, C-A-R-M dot org. You may recall a few years ago, a gentleman who represented that organization came here and visited us, one Sabbath. As a matter of fact, he sat right there during an entire service, and afterwards he talked with a number of you.

I believe he talked to Larry, that particular Sabbath, and he wanted to check us out. And unfortunately, though, I had spent breakfast with him to clear up some misconceptions they had about our beliefs, sure enough on their website, none of those errors were ever cleaned up or corrected, as I was told they would be during my breakfast with that individual that day. So if by some chance he's listening, I would like you to keep your word and to clean up the gross errors and ignorance that you said about the Church of God on your website.

However, here is what they say about Christmas. Again, this is a Christian site, so here's what they say. Quote, in the ancient Roman system of religion, Saturn was the god of agriculture. Each year during the summer, the god Jupiter would force Saturn out of his dominant position in the heavenly realm, and the days would begin to shorten.

In the temple of Saturn in Rome, the feet of Saturn were then symbolically bound with chains until their winter solstice, when the length of days began to increase. It was this winter solstice, December 25, that was a time of celebration and exchange of gifts as the hardness of winter began to wane and the days grew longer.

So based on this ancient event, Saturnalia became a week-long celebration that began on December 17 and ended on the 25th. Continuing, they say, in addition, December 25 coincided with the day of the birth of the sun god named Virgia, a culture in the ancient Balkans. One more paragraph. They continue, in the Roman Empire, by the time of Christ, Saturnalia Winter Festival was well known and established. The Roman Church was unable to get rid of this pagan holiday.

So early in the 4th century, the Roman Catholic Church, which was the dominant church in Europe, adopted the holiday and tried to convert it into a Christian celebration by declaring December 25th to be the day of the Lord's birth. They called it the Feast of the Nativity. This custom has been part of the Western culture ever since. So that kind of wraps it up in a nutshell of the actual origin of how Christmas came to be.

I'm not going to go into much more detail on the origins of Christmas in the sermon, because compared to 40 years ago when I was first studying the subject, it's now so easy to find on Google searches, encyclopedias, TV documentaries, very candidly expose the origins of how Christmas came to be celebrated and came to be. Obviously, we have a lot of great literature on that topic, including the Beyond the Day magazine. The evidence is clear and undisputable.

And the evidence is that Christmas was invented by the Catholic Church in Rome to absorb and dress up an ancient celebration of the Romans. They worshipped the birth of a God called Mithra, who was the Sun God. That's S-U-N. The Sun God. And as the Catholic Church found out, it is a hard day to stamp out. As a matter of fact, about 1,200 years later, when the Puritans came in power in Great Britain through a revolution, and the Puritans, some of them emigrated into New England, they also found it was very hard to stamp out. It was a celebration that people would not give up. The Puritans even fined you five shillings if you were caught observing Christmas. In New England, that day, everyone was forced to work on December 25th just to show everyone that it was not a sacred day to be observed. So it's always been a very hard day to stamp out. So, brethren, what does that have to do with you and I? Well, it has a lot to do with our belief system, because when the great God of Heaven makes a covenant with individuals or with nations, He's serious. And the covenant that we make with God is serious. And at our baptism, we made a covenant with God, that same God who was interested in an exclusive relationship with people.

And that relationship is intended to be intimate and faithful and committed. So let's learn more about what God's expectations are of His worshippers. What are God's expectations of you and I? Because when we ask that question, and when we begin to understand what God's value system is, then the answer to why we don't observe Christmas is actually very easy. Let's go to Jeremiah 3 and verse 6. If you'll turn there with me. Jeremiah 3 and verse 6.

God looked at His covenant relationship with ancient Israel like a marriage, like a marriage pact.

Something in which two were combined as one. Two were to be intimate and faithful and committed and loyal to one another. But unfortunately, that isn't the way that Israel was. Jeremiah 3 and verse 6. The Lord said also to me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? Now in context, He's talking about what had become the northern nation.

You may remember the days of Solomon that the nation was divided into. The northern nation retained the name Israel, and the southern group of tribes, a couple of tribes, became Judah, known as the tribe or the nation of Judah. Continuing, She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there played the harlot. So God is saying that by going and worshipping other gods, by looking and adopting the ways that other gods are worshipped, by cloning, by copying, by imitating the way that these pagan gods were worshipped, He likens it to sexual infidelity. He likens it to being a harlot, a prostitute, someone who's an adulterous, violating their covenant with God. Verse 7, And I said, after she had done these things, returned to Me, but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. So Judah looked and said, Look at what Israel's doing. That's kind of interesting. Israel is committing sin. The northern tribes are being adulterous. So again, God likens His relationship with His people as a marriage vow. Worshiping others is considered harlotry or spiritual adultery by God, when that relationship that He desires that should be intimate and loving and loyal and committed is compromised. Verse 8, Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear. But she went and she played the harlot also. So first, the northern tribes were committing adultery, spiritual adultery, by worshiping other gods, by going into the territories that other gods were worshiped, by borrowing those symbols, by borrowing those practices, by spiritually defiling their covenant with God. And Judah said, Well, I'll do the same thing. Verse 9, So it came to pass through her casual harlotry. That's a Hebrew word, kol, which means the lightness, which means that it becomes so habitual, it becomes so casual, you don't even feel a sense of shame anymore. It becomes a way of life. It says, So it came to pass through her casual harlotry, something that became so natural to her, that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. And of course, they would take stones and they would set the stones up, and they would use the stones to create altars, the pagan gods, and they would worship, in essence, the stones. The trees, there were sacred groves, there were trees that were particularly considered sacred in the pagan beliefs in that part of the world, and they would imitate and copy those pagan worship practices. For Judah, spiritual adultery became a casual way of life, almost natural.

No longer feeling a sense of shame in what they were doing. She idolized stones and trees as representations of, This is what God is. This is what God is all about. And throughout history, people would rather worship created things than the Creator. And that's what kind of makes the eternal Yahweh so unique, in that he says, you cannot represent me by creating or taking anything in nature, or anything in heaven and earth, and saying, This here represents me. And that's unique, because in every other religion, in every other area of the world, their gods were created things.

They were trees, or stones, or the sky, or the sun, or some heavenly object. They were something physical, something to represent the greatness of a being. And God said, I'm different. I'm different from all of those other gods, because I'm the true God.

And you cannot degrade my awesomeness by trying to represent me through nature, or through some created man-made thing of your own. You just can't do that. Let's take a look now in verse 10. And yet for all of her treacherous sister Judah, for all of this, her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but in pretense. So he says here, but in pretense. They've not turned to me. Then the Lord said to me, backsliding Israel, has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.

I thought Israel was bad. Well, Israel is more righteous than Judah. Judah became so degenerate in its worship practices. Go and proclaim these words towards the north, and say, and this is a prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled, and say, return backsliding Israel, says the Lord, I will not cause my anger to fall on you, for I am merciful, says the Lord, I will not remain angry forever, only acknowledge your iniquity. You know what that is? That means repent. That's just a fancy way of saying, repent, Israel, of what you've done, of how you think, and who and what you are, and get back on the right track.

Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God, and have scattered your charms, you've given your devotion and your time to alien deities under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice, says the Lord. Return, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married to you, I will take you, one from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

And that is certainly something that will occur after Jesus Christ returns to earth. God is going to bring his people, his old covenant people, who are scattered around the world, and bring them back to Zion. So we see here that both nations committed spiritual idolatry and spiritual adultery by idolizing pagan objects and festivals.

Adultery on any level is horrible. What is adultery? It's the betrayal of a special and an intimate relationship that's exclusive between a man and a woman. Or in the spiritual sense, between God and his future bride. In adultery, one is defrauded by having his or her most personal and prized object treacherously shared with someone else.

That's what adultery is on a human level, and it's what adultery is on a spiritual level. There's good reason that adultery is universally condemned in both the old and the new covenants, and even in most cultures of the world, adultery is condemned. And one of the things that adultery naturally creates is a sense of jealousy. Jealousy is the natural result of feeling like you've been betrayed. And we'll see in a few minutes where God says, I am a jealous God. My name, he says, is jealous. Because he knows what that feeling is like because his wife, the nation of Israel, committed spiritual adultery and violated the marriage agreement and the relationship that God had with Israel.

When one is jealous, it's the feeling of anger and envy and pain. When something dear to you gives their love to others, spiritual adultery brings a sense of jealousy to God because he feels betrayed.

And again, we'll look at that in a little more detail in just a few minutes. But here's one thing I want to highlight that's really important. Spiritual adultery is more than just worshiping other gods. Spiritual adultery is also borrowing the customs and the symbolism of other gods in order to worship the true God. So it's the borrowing of those practices, of those symbols, and saying, I'm going to use them to worship Yahweh.

I'm going to use them as my way to worship God. Now, is there an example of that? Mr. Thomas, you just made a pretty bold dogmatic statement. Is there an example of that? And the answer, of course, is absolutely. Let's turn to Exodus 32, verse 1. We'll show you, by the example of none less than Aaron, the high priest, how he committed his sin by trying to take something to represent the true God, Yahweh, the one that brought ancient Israel out of Egypt.

Exodus, chapter 32, this is an example of when Moses lingered on Mount Sinai. It was gone a long time. The people were without strong leadership. And they began to talk. They began to cause problems. And here's what it says in verse 1. Now, when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, Come, make us gods.

So their initial reaction was, Make us gods, similar to the ones that we had in Egypt. Notice God's plural, that shall go before us, as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

And Aaron said to them, Break off the golden earrings, which are the ears of your wives and sons and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people broke off the golden earrings, which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and he made a molded calf.

I want you to notice what's said here. The request was for gods. But no, we're going to do a bait and switch. We're going to compromise, because, you know, that would be obvious idolatry. Gods, there's only one God. There's only one true God. So we're going to do a little bait and switch here. And they said, this is your God, singular. This is, this calf, this golden calf, is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. This isn't some pagan God.

No, no, no. This is your God, Yahweh, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. That's what this calf represents. And they rose early in the next day, offered bird offerings, and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. And when it says rose up to play, it doesn't mean monopoly either.

Verse 7, and the Lord said to Moses, this is what God's attitude was, is God said, well, compromise is okay. After all, they meant well. After all, they're acknowledging me as the God who brought them out of Egypt. That's a cool thing. So is God going to compromise in his value system? Well, let's see what he says here. And Lord said to Moses, go get down for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. And they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.

They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshipped it, and sacrificed to it. And here's what they said that bothered God. Are you ready? This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. Brethren, this is spiritual adultery, because it's worshipping the true God falsely. It's using a pagan symbol to worship indeed the true God, but in a false way, because it truly doesn't represent who or what he is. I want you to notice that Aaron does two things that are exactly like the origin of Christmas by the Catholic Church. He does two things. Number one, he takes it upon himself to declare a feast day.

He has no authority to invent a day of worship to honor the Lord. Aaron has no authority to set anything apart, to sanctify it, and make it holy. But that's what he says here. He says, tomorrow is a feast of the Lord. Just like a number of years ago, a church said, hey, you know what? We're creating the feast of the nativity, and it's going to be on December 25th, because we have that authority.

We have that power. God says, you don't have that power. Aaron didn't have that power. Why would anyone think that they had that power? So that's the first thing he does. It takes it upon himself to declare a feast day. No man, no church, no groups of people have the right to declare a feast day. Only God decides what time is holy.

He is the only one that has the authority to sanctify something and set it apart to him as something special. Number two. Aaron borrows a pagan symbol. Everyone knew what was going on there. Cabs were worshipped in ancient Egypt as a god. One of the plagues, all the plagues actually were against Egyptian gods, but one of the plagues was a plague on the cattle. That was God basically saying, all of your gods are weaklings because I can plague them, I can hurt them anytime that I want. So he borrows a pagan symbol, again, Cabs were an Egyptian god, and declares that this pagan symbol is okay to represent Yahweh. It's okay to represent the God that brought us out of Egypt. And God says, no way. You can't do that. It doesn't work that way. He says, you have corrupted yourself.

We see here an example of what modern Christianity has done over and over again in the holy days that it has invented. Easter, Halloween, Christmas, all of these days which were borrowed directly from either paganism or just artificially invented as some religious day of significance. We've seen that done over and over again. And they've invented or created pagan symbols that have been incorporated in their worship practices. And again, that is very evident throughout modern Christianity today. I want to reinforce again, notice the bait and switch that occurred here. Aaron did it. The people asked for gods. That was plural. And Aaron compromised and gave them a God. Not just a God, but he gave them something that represented your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.

So that's very important for us to understand. He was saying, he was excusing, he was compromising that it's okay because this calf merely represents Yahweh. This calf just represents the true God, the one God that we know as Israel and that we worship. So here he was borrowing a pagan symbol and practice, and he was calling it acceptable. He was calling it good. And it's not acceptable. It's not good. Let's now go to Deuteronomy 12 and verse 28. A very common characteristic of human nature, and God knew what Israel would be like once he gave them the gift of the Promised Land. We already read about backsliding Israel in Jeremiah. God prophesied that that's exactly what would happen here in Deuteronomy 12 and verse 28. He says, Verse 29.

Verse 30.

Oh, wow! That's pretty! That's beautiful! That just seems like such a sacred ceremony. Why, that would tie in real well with our theology. That would just fit real well with what we want to believe. And God says, you just cannot do that. Take heed. Don't duplicate what the pagans do in order to worship me. Verse 31.

You will not add to it, nor take away from it. So he says, when it comes to worshiping me, you don't look around and see what other cultures, other religions are doing, no matter how sincere they may be, how physically attractive it may be. You don't look at those things and say, yeah, I'd like to add that to our religious practices. I would like to add that to the way that we worship God. God says, you cannot do that. God makes it plain that those who worship him must not simply borrow, relabel, redress worship practices of the pagans in an attempt to worship the true God. Now, we need to understand this, and I know a lot of people get confused. God does not condemn everything that originated in pagan cultures. And I know some church people that take that too far. The wedding ring originated in pagan culture. Our calendar, the days of the week, and our months originated in pagan culture. The game of chess originated in a pagan culture. Much of what we do in our society originated in pagan cultures. But what God does condemn are pagan worship customs that are used in a shameful attempt to honor him. That is what he condemns. Not something that originated in paganism, but a borrowed practice ceremony or custom that is used to worship the true God. Let's now go to Exodus 20, beginning in verse 3. God wants all of us, including anyone who follows him under any covenant, to realize how he is, how he reacts to spiritual adultery. Exodus 20, verse 3. And again, this shows the uniqueness of Yahweh in that unlike any other God that ever existed on this planet, all of which are represented by trees or stones or, I said, you know, heavenly objects or grass or virtually people have worshipped virtually anything throughout human history, he says you cannot do that to symbolize, to represent me. I am beyond that. That is demeaning. That is taking my awesome glory and bringing it down to a human level. And you cannot do that. Exodus 20, verse 3. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. He says I'm a jealous God and people suffer iniquity who violate my covenant. They pay the price. They pay a terrible price for violating my relationship. Again, visiting iniquity and the fathers of the children on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. So once we repent, we and our descendants have the possibility of having a completely different relationship with God. Again, what makes the eternal unique is he does not want created objects used as symbols to represent him like all other man-made religions. God is a righteously jealous. He created and saved his people from serving Satan to be his very own bride. That's a relationship. He expects complete loyalty and adoration. He expects sincere obedience. The first and great commandment is to love God with all of our heart and our mind and our soul and our strength.

He will not share your love or your interest with other things. That's how important it is to God. And even in our worship practices in here, you will notice that we do not have a crucifix anywhere in this building. You notice we don't have pictures of Jesus anywhere in this building. You'll notice we don't have stained glass.

We don't have votive candles in this hall anywhere. However, following the example of the New Testament, we do have fish in the church office. I just wanted to mention that to you.

But even again, in our worship practices in here, we don't borrow what other people do just because they do it.

We ask ourselves a question, and that question is, does it really honor God? The question usually is, is it something that has been borrowed from paganism, oftentimes relabeled as Christian, and should we bring that into our forms of worship? And we believe the answer to that is absolutely no.

Now Exodus chapter 34. Let's go forward about 14 chapters. Exodus chapter 34 verse 11.

Exodus chapter 34 verse 11. Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images. Notice he doesn't say, you shall copy and duplicate what they're doing because it's pretty, or because the children love it, or because it's convenient, because everyone else is doing it. He doesn't say that. Verse 14, for you shall worship no other God, for the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God. And that's a righteous, godly jealousy, by the way, that he is entitled, fully entitled to have.

His name is jealous, and he burns in jealous rage when his people even flirt with worshiping any other God using their symbols, using their relabeled festivals in an attempt to worship him. Let's take a look at a custom, just one custom that's part of this season. That's an example of something God doesn't approve of. Jeremiah chapter 10 and verse 1. Let's take a look at a common custom that you'll see in this part of the year.

Jeremiah chapter 10 beginning in verse 1. Now, this, in context, is not talking about, per se, the modern Christmas tree, which was of German origin many, many years after Jeremiah wrote this. Actually, it has a much broader understanding. It's talking about any earthly tradition or custom that gives honor or celebrity or religious status to a mere tree of nature. Jeremiah chapter 10 and verse 1 here, the word that the Lord speaks to you, a house of Israel, thus says the Lord, Do not learn the way of the Gentiles. You could just stop right there. Don't look around at what unconverted, ungodly nations and peoples and ethnicities do and say, Wow, I think I'll copy that. I think I'll learn how they do that, and I'll start doing it. Do not learn the way of the Gentiles. Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them. The words don't hyperventilate over blood moons and, oh wow, this asteroid's coming within five miles of earth and, oh, you read the news. Constance, don't worry. You're in God's hands. You're protected. God loves you. The earth isn't going to be destroyed. God says that Jesus Christ is returning this earth to remake it, to turn everything upside down and build a new kingdom on it. So don't get dismayed over the signs in the heavens and all worked up over that kind of stuff. It's a distraction. Verse 3, for the customs of the peoples are futile. So he's going to talk about a custom. He doesn't even necessarily say a religious custom. He says just something that people do that's really pretty stupid. For one cuts a tree from the forest. The work of the hands of the workmen with the axe. So the guy goes out and he chops a tree down. And they decorate it with silver and gold. They put silver and gold all over this tree. And they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it won't fall over. They put it in some type of stand or something so that this tree doesn't fall over. They're upright like a palm tree. And they cannot speak. He's basically saying they're dead. They're kind of ridiculous. Cutting a tree out. Why didn't you leave it alive in the yard? It was at least alive. But they cut it down. They bring it in. He says it cannot speak. They must be carried. Because they cannot go by themselves. It's dead. What's the use of this, he's saying? Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil. Neither can they do any good. In contrast to this, he says, this ridiculous custom of the Gentiles, inasmuch as there is none like you, O Lord, you are great and your name is great and might. So in contrast to this dead tree that the Gentiles cut out and bring it in and put silver and gold on it and nail it so it won't fall over. In contrast to all of this nonsense, he says, there is none like you, O Lord, you are awesome. You are the great God. You are great and your name is great. So he's showing the contrast here. Again, in context, this isn't talking about the modern Christmas tree, per se, but any earthly tradition or custom that gives honor and celebrity and religious stature to anything that's just merely of nature.

It doesn't deserve your respect, your adoration.

The God of nature is appalled by people's attempt to idolize and give honor to created things rather than the Creator.

He made a statement here about this being futile. The customs of the peoples are futile. I just found it interesting that according to the U.S. Fire Department, between the years 2010 and 2014, there was an estimated average of 210 home structure fires per year that began with Christmas trees.

These fires caused an annual average of six deaths, 16 civilian injuries, and $16.2 million in direct property damage. All by doing that futile custom of the Gentiles.

Here's what History.com said about the Christmas tree.

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.

In Northern Europe, the mysterious Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life.

The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Baldar.

Here's what ChristianityToday.org says. Now, that sounds very Christian-like, doesn't it?

ChristianityToday.org and their article, Why Do We Have Christmas Trees?

Here's what they say, quote, The evergreen tree was an ancient symbol of life in the midst of winter.

Romans decorated their houses with evergreen branches during the New Year.

An ancient inhabitants of Northern Europe cut evergreen trees and placed them in boxes inside their houses in the wintertime.

Many early Christians were hostile to such practices.

The second century theologian Tertullian, again he died about 220 AD, condemned those Christians who celebrated the winter festivals and decorated their house with laurel boughs in honor of the emperor.

That doesn't sound like something that's very Christian to me, does it?

Let's go now to 2 Corinthians 11, going to the New Testament.

Maybe Paul had a different opinion.

There are a lot of religious agendas and philosophies in our world today that say, well, the new covenant just changed everything.

The Sabbath was done away, the Ten Commandments were done away, everything was nailed to the cross, and all you need to do is love one another.

Kind of sounds like a hippie commune.

So maybe, just maybe with that philosophy, that God no longer is appalled by paganism.

Maybe that's the case.

Well, let's find out. 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14.

Paul writes, Do not be unequally loaked together with unbelievers.

For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? There's a contrast.

There's righteousness, and then there's sin. You can't marry those two together.

You can't bring those two together. They're diametrically opposite.

And what communion has light with darkness?

Again, they're diametrically opposed.

And what accord has Christ with Baliel?

I want to ask this question.

What accord does the birth of Christ have with the birth of Mithra on December 25th?

The answer to that is none, because they're diametrically opposite and opposed to one another.

So again, what agreement, or what accord, has Christ with Baliel?

Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?

And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?

We are the temple of God. We are the bride of Jesus Christ.

God wants a committed, faithful, loyal relationship with us. How can we compromise in the way that we worship God by borrowing pagan religious practices or symbols and saying, This is how I choose to worship God? He'll understand because I want to do it.

For you are the temple of the living God, Paul continues.

As God has said, I will dwell in them, through the power of his Holy Spirit, and walk among them.

I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord.

Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.

And, brethren, I can tell you, by the authority of the word of God, that borrowing a pagan religious symbol or practice and saying, Well, this is how I choose to worship God, is an unclean action.

It is an unclean thought.

And it leads nowhere but sin.

Come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord.

God, do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.

I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

Again, I want to emphasize that God desires to have a close, exclusive relationship with him, not tainted by the religious customs and traditions of the world, no matter how innocent, no matter how pretty, or no matter how casual they may appear.

How about James? Did James... Maybe Paul was just a little odd.

Did James have a similar philosophy as Paul?

Well, let's go to James 4, verses 4 through 7.

James 4, verses 4 through 7.

James 4, verses 4.

James, chapter 4, verses 4.

Atalters and adultresses, exclamation point.

Obviously, he's speaking spiritually here.

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, the Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?

You see, brethren, God wants us all to himself.

He desires to be our friend. He wants us to spend our time with him.

Our actions and our worship should be centered on him and on the way that he chooses to be honored.

And not just do it in a way that's convenient, or it's always been done this way, or it's some pagan practice that we put lipstick on and made it pretty.

That doesn't impress God. That's not the kind of relationship that God wants to have with us.

We saw what Paul said. We just saw what James said. How about John? Let's go to John, 1 John, chapter 5 and verse 19.

John wrote, we know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know him who is true.

Do we know that God? Do we know that him who is true is a jealous God?

That he won't share our religious practices that were borrowed from paganism and use those practices to worship him? That it's demeaning? It's offensive to the awesome greatness of Yahweh? Can we understand that we have been given that understanding? And that is why that relationship of being the bride of Christ needs to be so committed, needs to be loyal, needs to be faithful.

That we may know him who is true, and we are in him who is true in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God in eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols, he says. Amen.

And he concludes his epistle. Well, brethren, in conclusion, let us remember that God created the institution of marriage because it reflects the deep sense of intimacy and love and respect that he wants with his bride the Church of God.

We do not celebrate Christmas because it does not honor God.

And it is not biblical. And we do not accept that churches have the right to invent festivals of their own. We don't accept that. We don't believe that church organizations, that religious leaders, have the right to borrow religious pagan worship practices and say, okay, these are all right to use the worship the true God.

We are betrothed to Jesus Christ, and we have faithfully promised to worship God as he desires.

And how does he desire to be worshipped? Well, as he told this American woman in truth.

Have a wonderful Sabbath day.