Why Don't We Celebrate Christmas?

It's time for the covered Buying Brothers Song of H cookbag! I know that all of us were shocked this week over the tragedy that's taken place up in Connecticut. This isn't part of my sermon, but I just wanted to mention that. We certainly do live in a society today where it seems that evil is certainly increasing. We don't know much about the young man who did this, except that he had a form of autism. He apparently was a straight-A student, but something obviously went wrong in his thinking, his reasoning. It shows that all of us need to pray for God's protection, safety, and daily. I'm sure that you've been praying that God would strengthen and comfort the parents, people, and families up in that area. It's just horrific to think that somebody would come in, kill a whole kindergarten class, a first grade class, and you just shoot them.

When you have 27 people, you would be at 28 counting the shooter. It's just hard to explain how something like that occurs, except that we live in a time when, I think, Satan, his influence is becoming more and more pronounced and more and more prominent. I'd like to describe somebody to you, and I'd like for you to tell me who I'm talking about.

He is omniscient. He is omnipresent. He is omnipresent. He's omnipotent. He's faithful. He's eternal. He's immutable.

He is the height of love. He's righteous. He's sovereign. He's coming back, and he's worshiped. Now, I couldn't describe anybody but who. Well, you would think Jesus Christ, wouldn't you? Let me read from an article that I found. I found this very interesting. The False God of Christmas, since we are approaching that particular season, says some parents have been teaching their children the following things about Santa.

Now, of course, they don't say it exactly this way, but notice the article. Santa is omniscient. He knows how children behave throughout the year. He knows if you've been naughty or nice. The familiar song says he knows we've been bad or good. He perfectly knows what children want for Christmas, even if the child has not had the opportunity to speak to Santa directly. Somehow, he, quote-unquote, knows. He's omnipotent. No storm is too great to hinder Santa from performing his annual miracle, delivering gifts throughout the world. He also defies the laws of nature by flying, by coming down chimneys, the narrowest of chimneys, the hottest of chimneys.

Not with that, nor would we forget his amazing ability to produce millions of gifts throughout the year. Is anything too hard for Santa? With Santa, all things are possible.

Santa is omnipresent. To visit every home in the world in one evening requires nothing less than being omnipresent. Every child in the world can wake up in the morning and say, Santa has been here. Santa was present in my home. Prior to Christmas, Santa also appears in hundreds of street corners, all kinds of shopping centers throughout the country at the same time. So, you know, how does he how does he do that? Well, we know, but when you're looking at it from a little child's point of view and what people tell their children. That's the way this article was written. Santa is faithful. You can always count on Santa. Santa never fails. He never breaks his word when Santa makes a promise. He'll keep it. When he promises a child a gift, that child will never be disappointed. Children are fully persuaded that what Santa has promised Santa will do. You know, he will carry it out. The child that believes in Santa will not be but the shame. He's totally dependable and trustworthy. So that's the way old Santa is. He's eternal. Santa is a white beard and a weather-beaten face. He's a very essence of eternity, year after year goes by, and Santa grows no older. Generations come and go, but Santa is still there. He doesn't go anywhere. His life is endless and Santa cannot die. Santa belongs an unending life.

Then Santa is immutable. Yesterday, today, and forever there will be a Santa Claus. He never seems to change. He's always happy. He's always jolly. He's always kind to children. In a changing world, you can count on Santa being there. Then Santa loves all boys and girls in the world. It doesn't matter who they are, black, yellow, red, or white. He loves everybody. They're all precious in his sight. And then Santa is righteous. All that Santa does is right. He makes no mistake. Every child gets, generally, what he wants. He's good. He showers his blessings to all. Every good and perfect gift comes from Santa. It is Santa who brings the best of gifts at that time of the year. And he is sovereign. On Christmas Eve, Santa is complete control of the situations. Circumstances do not faze him, such as a storm, size of chimney, red-hot, fires, anything of that nature. He is the king of Christmas. And then Santa is coming.

Santa Claus is coming to town. You better be ready. You better watch out. You better be good. So, are you prepared for his coming? Santa is coming to reward every boy and girl according to his work. Millions of boys and girls each year wait with expectancy for the glorious appearing of the great Santa God. What a blessed hope for countless numbers of children. Santa is going to come sometime during the night. You just don't know. And then Santa is worshiped, the last point. Santa is worshiped and loved by tens of thousands of children the world around. They love him so much that all through the year they seek to please him so when they see him they will not be ashamed. On Christmas Eve they have food and drink, offerings on the hearth. O come, let us adore him, you know they say. So, I thought it was an interesting article because actually all of those points, as we know, apply to God. That God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He's faithful, eternal, immutable. He is love, righteousness, good. He's sovereign. He is going to come back to the earth and he is the one who should be worshiped.

Now, rather than whether we realize it or not, and the average person doesn't think of it from this point of view, but when Christmas comes around every year and they have younger children, they lie to their children. They just out and out lie and tell them falsehoods about Santa Claus, and then later on it's the Easter Bunny, whoever it might be. Why don't we keep Christmas?

You can say, well, maybe you could keep Christmas if you didn't lie about it. You just exchange gifts and so on. Why do we prefer not to? And why do we not to? See, Christmas is supposed to be the birthday of who? Well, Jesus Christ. It is a day that supposedly honors him, his birth, and the story surrounding his birth. And so you have the nativity, scenes, you know, all of that. Why is it that if this is the birthday, quote-unquote, of Jesus Christ, and that God is who he says he is, why don't parents tell their children that it's God who brings you all of these good gifts? Why is it some fictitious character? Now, I'm not saying they should do that. Don't get me wrong. But I'm saying if they're going to talk about a being who is omnipresent and faithful and omniscient and so on, why don't they talk about God? You know, back in James chapter 1 and verse 17, we do find this scripture, James 1.17, that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. And of course, we're talking here about spiritual blessings that God gives us and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. How many parents teach their children throughout the year that it is God who has blessed us? It is God who has allowed us to live in this wonderful country. It is God who provides food, clothing, and shelter for us. You were the recipients of those blessings.

Where and when did a day originate that celebrates Christ's birthday? Where and when did this day to celebrate his birthday come from and originate? We used to say, go look up in any encyclopedia, go read the Catholic Encyclopedia, and you can see where the origin of Christmas comes from. Well, today, all you have to do is go on the internet, type in origin of Christmas, and you will find dozens and dozens and dozens of articles that will pop up. You don't have to go very far. It doesn't take very long. I did this. I thought, well, I'm going to find some new material that I haven't given before that would give little background.

So I went to a number of websites, but I quoted from a website by Vixen Crabtree. And let me read the following. He had quoted several other websites about Christmas, and here's what he wrote. Son worship formed the basis of Mithorism, Zornism, and other Roman religions of many other pagan traditions. It is the reason Sunday is a holy day in many religions.

Why major festivals are held at spring and the sultists?

The real meaning of Christmas is son worship. A reminder to all life on earth that we owe everything to the Son.

Son worship is one of the main pillars of all religions, especially the older religions.

Son worshipers and nature religions, the most ancient of religions, held major celebrations at the winter solstice, the victory of the strength of the Son over the forces of darkness. And they tried to suppress it. Osiris, the Inicius, represented and was represented by the Son, as was Jesus, whom the Church father, Clement of Alexander, called the Son of Righteousness. When old relics and religious symbols such as the human faces are given a light backdrop of rays of light, or a corolla it means they represent the Son. Now, you see, we people in religious circles take that to mean what represents being glorified, no, it represents the Son. And the Catholic Encyclopedia says, Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian, amidst it from their list of festivals.

Sir James Fraser says, quote, the largest pagan religious cults, which faltered the celebration of December 25th as a holiday, was the pagan sun worship of Mithorism. The winter festival was called the Nativity of the Sun. Now, today they just change the words around a little bit and call it the Nativity of the Sun, or the Son of God. Francis Cumat, perhaps the greatest scholar on Mithorism, wrote, quoting Manusius Felix, quote, the Mithoris also observes Sunday, kept sacred the 25th of December as the birth of the sun. Many scholars have pointed out how the sun-worshipping Mithorism, the sun-worshipping Manchaeans, and the Christians were all synergized and reconciled when Constantine led to the takeover of Christianity. What Constantine did was to blend all of these religions together. And, says, however, other sun-worshipping groups were included, too, because of the general importance and popularity of the sole evictus, the invincible sun deity. Mario Righetti, a renowned Catholic linguist, writes, the Church of Rome, to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the temporal birth of Christ to divert them from the pagan festival, celebrated on the same day in honor of the invincible sun. Now you are pork, now you are fish. That's in essence what they did. Here was a pagan day, and so in order to get the pagans to come into the Church, they kept the they kept the trappings associated with the day, but they called it by a different name. It is the 25th, or the day of the birth of Christ. It goes on to talk about the Mithras, the mixing of pagan sun worship in Christianity, is exemplified by this testimony of a Syrian scholar, Bar Shalaba, who said, quote, It was the custom of the heathens to celebrate on the same 25th of December the birthday of the sun, at which they kindled lights and token of festivity. In these solemnities and festivities the Christians also took part. Practically all the known sun deities were born on the 25th of December. So all of these religions had deities who were born in December on the 25th. In S.C. Tippcom's Aryan Sun Myths, the origin of religion, we find it cited, quoted from primary sources, that the following sun deities were all born on the 25th of December, according to their legends. Krishna, Vishnu, Mithra, Osiris, Horus, Hercules, Hercules, Dionysius, Bacchus, Tamas, Indra, Buddha. It says therein we also read the Scandinavian goddess Phrygia, whose honor a Mother Night festival was held at the Winter Solstice, and as well as the similar great feast of Yule, where a boar was offered at the Winter Solstice in honor of Phrygia. So all of these pagan gods had their birthdays celebrated on the 25th of December, and Christ was not born anywhere near the 25th of December. We don't know when exactly what day he was born on, but we know what day he wasn't born on. He was not born on December the 25th. I mean, that you can take to the bank. You'll count on it. Now, with that in mind, have you ever stopped to ask yourself, how does Christmas violate the Ten Commandments?

God has given us Ten Commandments, Ten Spiritual Laws to govern our action. Let's go back to Exodus chapter 20, and I want you to take a look here real quick. We'll go through the Ten Commandments, and let's see how this celebration of Christmas, you might lump Easter in there, Halloween, all of these particular days, violates every one of the principles of God's spiritual law.

In Exodus chapter 20 and verse 3, God says, you shall have no other gods before me.

So, we are not to have any other god before the true God. And yet, December the 25th is a day that is devoted to all of these pagan gods, pantheon of gods. A false god is portrayed. We can laugh at the article about Santa, but yet, parents tell their children things about Santa that are strictly only true of God. It can only apply to God as far as his abilities and how long he has lived and his goodness and his love and so on. So, God says you're not to have any other god before the true God. The true God is the one... how do you know if you worship the true God or not? Well, he's the God of the Bible, and he tells us how to worship him. We can't decide for ourselves. He's the one who tells us how. Notice in verse 4, you shall not make for yourselves a carved image of any likeness of anything that is heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You're not to bow down to them and serve them. So, we are not to set up any carved image or any likeness of God or image of God. It becomes an idol. Have you ever seen pictures of Jesus Christ pictured as a baby? You certainly see pictures of him as a grown man the way some painter thought he looked. He did not stay a baby, if you'll remember. He did grow up. He died when he was 33 and a half years old. He was resurrected. He is in heaven right now on the right hand of God. How often do you see a picture of the Madonna and the child? Madonna being quote-unquote married, the child, and the Madonna overshadows the child, Christ's child. Who is it who is our high priest, our go-between between us and God? Is it the Madonna? And yet that's taught in the major Christian religion around the world, that she is a go-between between man and God. You pray to saints and they take your message up to God. Well, the only high priest we have and the only one that we go to or through is through Jesus Christ. This commandment is being broken by the observance of these days. Verse 7, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Now, not to take his name in vain, applying a pagan day to God or to Christianity or associating his name with it is taking God's name in vain. God's name, which represents who he is, what he is, what he stands for, your name represents who you are, taking his name and associating it with a festival that is a pagan festival that has been clothed, quote-unquote. It's like taking a pig and dressing a pig in white cloth and saying it's no longer a pig. Well, it doesn't matter what you dress it in, underneath it's still a pig. And underneath it's still a pagan holiday. And I'm not saying Christmas is a pig. Again, I'm just using an analogy that maybe we can understand, but applying a pagan name to God and claiming that God is behind it, that it represents Jesus Christ, is a misapplication. It is a misuse of the name of God. We're taking his name in vain. What about verse 8? Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Well, the weekly Sabbath is a holy day. There are days, the weekly Sabbath being one, but the annual Sabbath, if you want to put them all together here, the annual Sabbath likewise are days that we worship God on. The weekly Sabbath and the annual holy days. Man comes along with his own days to worship God. So he says, we keep Sunday. They try to do away with the Sabbath. They don't keep the annual holy days, but then they keep Christmas and Easter and everything else. You honor God by not worshiping him according to your own customs, your own traditions, your own ways, but by worshiping God according to what he tells you. Sunday and Christmas and Easter, these are not the days that God tells us to worship him on. You and I come here, and by our fellowship, by our being here, our presence, by our participating, singing, praying, and hearing sermons, and so on, we're worshiping God. Any time you're doing something like Christmas, you're actually doing something on a day that God has not set aside. So even though it's not directly violating the Sabbath day itself, it is violating the principle that the Sabbath is found on. Verse 12, honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

Do you honor your parents by doing the opposite of what they ask you to do?

God says, don't learn the way of the heathens. And so we say, well, I think I'll learn the way of the heathens. I think I'll practice the way of the heathens. And we're not doing what our heavenly Father or our mother, the Church, tells us to do. So you honor God by being upright, by being righteous, by doing what He tells us to do. You honor Him in that way. A criminal does not bring honor to the family name. This young man in Colorado has put a smirk on his family name. You and I, rather than any of you, are not doing this, but anyone who is keeping Christmas is bringing shame on the family name of God. So we're not honoring God by doing so. You honor God by doing what He tells you to do. Then we're told you're not to murder. You're not to commit murder. Remember over in the book of James, James 4, verse 4, James 4, 4 says, adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship with this world is enmity with God and that whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God? This world and its customs are not of God. We are to be faithful to God. When baptized, we stated that we would be totally committed to God, that we would obey Him, that we would do what He said. Sin is breaking God's law. If you break one, you break them all. The Bible says. When it comes down to murder, why did Jesus Christ have to come to the earth? Why did He come as a baby? Then grow, live a perfect life for 33 and a half years. He was God in the flesh, and He came because you and I need His Savior, because we've sinned. We've been sinners. Why did He have to die? Because of our sins, so that we could be forgiven. So, brethren, Christ died so that all of our sins could be forgiven, and we are the ones who are responsible for His death.

Now, again, we're not to commit adultery. I was reading James 4.4 about adulterers and adulterers. This world and its customs are not of God. We're to be faithful to God. When you and I were baptized, we said that we would put God first. Ephesians chapter 5, if you will remember, compares marriage between a man and a woman to the relationship between Christ and the Church. And so, if we are not committed to God in obeying Him in every facet of our lives, then we commit spiritual adultery. We commit spiritual idolatry, likewise, in breaking God's commandment. The Western world has not been faithful to God, faithful to His laws, faithful to Him as their husband. And then we're told in verse 15, you're not to steal.

Now, stealing is taking something that doesn't belong to you, belongs to somebody else, and taking it. Well, Jesus Christ was born. We know that that occurred, but we don't know when it occurred. So, we cannot come along and appropriate a day and set it aside as something that we know that God would do. God doesn't. Also, it goes on to talk about burying false witness and not coveting. When you teach children lies, you bear false witness. What about Santa, Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer, all the gifts coming, coming down the chimney, all of these things that young people are told. So, people do bear false witness. And what about coveting? We're told that we are not to covet. What about the commercialism of Christmas?

Do people covet? Is there greed exhibited at that time of the year? I think so. People are greedy. They want to get out. Of course, people want to give. And, you know, it's a time when families get together. We know that. But, brethren, God doesn't accept that form of worship. Let's go back to the book of Deuteronomy 32 and verse 15. Deuteronomy 32.15. I just thought it was interesting to go through the Ten Commandments. And when you look at the spiritual application of those, and I'm sure if you were to think about it more completely, more fully, that you'd come up with all kinds of ways that keeping these days violate the Ten Commandments. But let's notice here, beginning in verse 15. It says, but Jesurun grew fat and kicked. You grew fat. You grew thick. You are obese. Then he forsook God who made him, and scornfully esteemed the rock of his salvation. Talking here about the children of Israel. They provoked him to jealousy with foreign gods, pagan gods, foreign ideas. With abominations, they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons and not to God.

Are there certain customs and traditions, as the Bible says, that are doctrines of demons? Something that Satan and his demons actually influenced the world and people to do? Well, they sacrificed to demons and not to God. To gods they did not know. To new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear of the rock who begot you.

And you are unmindful and have forgotten the God who fathered you. And when the Lord saw it, he spurned them because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. And he said, I will hide my face from them, and I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation.

They have provoked me to jealousy by what is not God. They have moved me to anger by their foolish idols, but I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation. And so I will move them to anger by a foolish nation. So here it shows that the peoples of Israel, and the reason why originally they suffered and went into captivity was because they rebelled against God and his commandments.

And they worshipped other gods, new gods, and the abomination of those gods. Now, we've already read it, but back in Deuteronomy 5, beginning in verse 4, we're told that we're not to have any other God before the true God. We're not to worship God in any old way that we think. With that in mind, let's go over to Jeremiah chapter 10. I think we're all familiar with Jeremiah 10. Jeremiah 10 talks about making idols. Now, let's notice, beginning in verse 1, Jeremiah 10.1, God is very specific when he says, Hear the word which the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord, Do not learn the way of the Gentiles.

So don't learn their ways. Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them, for the customs of the people are futile. They cut a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workmen. They decorate with silver and gold, talking about carving an idol, cutting a tree, and they could have set up a tree or an idol in many, many different ways. So we're told not to learn their ways. And yet, Israel has always copied the nations around them and what they did and their customs.

Back in Revelation 18, verse 4, when it talks about the future and our people, when they are taken into captivity, God says to come out from her, my people, talking about Babylon and the fact that the Babylonian system is about to be punished. Brethren, why don't we keep Christmas? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself that question? Well, back in 2006, in the Good News magazine, was an article, 10 Reasons Why I Don't Keep Christmas. And I was looking over and reading that and I thought, you know, I've given four or five reasons before, but 10 reasons why I don't keep Christmas.

Let's take a look at these reasons and I think you and I will all see that these are reasons why we no longer observe these days. Number one, Christmas is driven by commercialism. Advertisers work on people's greed, desire to get, and also on guilt.

You come to that time of the year and you've got children, small children especially, family, you feel guilty. And people who are normally sane, wouldn't spend an extra nickel or dime, go out and spend hundreds of dollars. Because, you know, I've got to buy gifts. You know, I've got to do this. I think the average individual spends something like average adult $700 on Christmas. Some statistics say upwards to $1,500 to $2,000.

Maybe that's a couple together. Look at how the sales go up at this time of the year. You know, you have Black Friday because this is the time when the stores get out of the, you know, out of the red. You know, they begin to make some money.

Many people go into debt and struggle to pay their credit card off for the rest of the year because they want to make sure that they are able to buy gifts. And so advertisers are very good. They'll work on your guilt. They'll show you all these happy scenes and happy family get-togethers. Well, let me ask you a question. Can you get together and be happy without keeping Christmas?

What about Thanksgiving? What about just let's have a family reunion? You know, let's get together and, you know, have a nice meal. Let's honor our parents or, you know, honor somebody else in the family, but you don't have to be driven by commercialism. Let's face it. Christmas today is commercial. I remember this year going into a cracker barrel and went into a cracker barrel to get a cup of tea. This was right after the feast and they were setting up Christmas decorations. I thought, man, you'll get earlier and earlier. Sometime it's going to be in April or May that they begin to set up for Christmas, but Christmas is driven by commercialism. Point number two. Christmas is nowhere mentioned in the Bible. Nowhere does it say, thou shall keep Christmas or thou may keep Christmas.

Or it's hunky dory for you to keep Christmas. Nothing is said that way. You go through the New Testament and the Old Testament, go through the book of Acts, the history of the church, and it covers a period from around 31 AD down to approximately 61 or 2 AD.

And see what days did they observe. Do you find Christmas, Easter, any of these days mentioned? No. If you go through the book, you start out the day of Pentecost, Acts 2.

The day of Pentecost came, and that's when God poured out the Holy Spirit. Chapter 12, the days of Unleavened Bread and Passover are referenced. Chapter 16, the day of Pentecost, is mentioned again. It mentions a Sabbath, but most of the commentaries believe that's talking about Pentecost. Chapter 18, verse 21, he said, I must by all means, Paul did, keep this feast. It comes in Jerusalem. And so he hastened to be there for the feast. Chapter 20, the days of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost are both mentioned.

Acts 27 and verse 9, the fast, the day of Atonement, is mentioned. Jesus Christ did not institute any other days. You find going through Paul's writings, the book of Acts, that the annual Holy Days of God are observed. None of the pagan holidays are what we would call Christmas and Easter today.

Now that brings us to point number three out of the ten reasons why you shouldn't observe Christmas. And Jesus wasn't born on or near December the 25th. Now how do we know that? Well, there are many different ways of knowing that, but from all the evidence, Jesus Christ was born around the time of the fall festivals, somewhere in that period of time. He was 33 and a half years old when he died. Passover in AD 31 was on Wednesday, April the 25th. So you count May, June, July, August, September, October. If Christ died and he was 33 and a half years old, count six months back, six months forward, and you come somewhere around the end of September, the beginning of October. Jesus Christ was born somewhere around that period of time, not December the 25th. Now there are many different ways that you can prove that, but that's just one of the more logical ways that you should be able to think of immediately.

Now point number four, the Christmas holiday is largely a recycled pagan celebration, and that's pretty much what we've been looking at in the book, I mean in the sermon so far today. How many of you have Dr. C. Paul Meredith's write-up on the origin of the church from Plain Truth magazine back in the 40s and 50s, early 60s? Not too many of us, I tell you. I do happen to have it. In fact, I've got a bound copy of it where I have all of the different lessons he wrote up. What Dr. C. Paul Meredith did, many of you will remember him from Ambassador College. Dr. Meredith was the one to write the original correspondence course. He was the uncle to Dr. Meredith, Rod Meredith, and he wrote the basically the 58 lesson correspondence course. He would sit and listen to sermons, go through all the writings up to that time, and he would put together the correspondence course at that time. He ran a series of articles in the Plain Truth magazine about the origin of the church, the origin of the pagan customs in the church, and he wrote quite an extensive write-up. Actually, it could have been a book on those. You go back and you read what he wrote, and he very clearly lays out the origin of these days. But they are recycled pagan celebrations. As I said, all you have to do is go to the web and type in, you know, "'Christmas, its origin, pagan origin, any words of that nature,' and you will find dozens and dozens of articles." Now, that brings us to point number five. God condemns using pagan customs to worship him. He says, don't do it. Don't you dare. Let's go back to Deuteronomy 12. Deuteronomy 12 in verse 29. Deuteronomy 12. We'll begin to read in verse 29.

It says, When the Lord your God cuts all from before you, the nations, which you go to dispose, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself, here's a warning he gives them, 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? I also will do likewise. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abomination to the Lord, which he hates they have done to their gods, and they burn even their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.

Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. You shall not add to it, nor shall you take away from it. So God says, don't you go around and, oh, isn't this a quaint day? Let's keep this day. He says, no, you don't add to it, and you don't take away from it. So God strictly warned them against taking pagan customs to worship him, and yet that's exactly what we've done. The Bible, if you remember in Paul's writings, talk about how Satan the devil himself appears as an angel of light, how his ministers appear as angels of righteousness. And so we know that Satan has ministers. We know that he comes across as an angel of light, and so all of these things are there, and people are deceived by them. How does Satan deceive the whole world? Well, you know, he does it through false religions, and when you look at Christianity, Satan has deceived the Christian world through false customs and traditions. Now, point number six, Christmas is worshiping God in vain. The sixth reason why I don't keep Christmas, and you shouldn't, Christmas is worshiping God in vain. You cannot worship God in any old way that you want to. Let's notice back in the book of Matthew, chapter 15 and verse 8.

Matthew 15 and verse 8. Notice why Christ said, verse 7, hypocrites. Well, did Isaiah prophesy about you saying, These people draw near to me with their mouth. They honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain they worship me. Now, it's possible to worship God in vain.

How? Teaching as doctrine the commandments of men. That's how.

The Pharisees, Sadducees, religious leaders of that day had established their own customs and traditions, their own do's and don'ts, their own way of how to keep the Sabbath or the Holy Days, how to tithe, and so on. And many of those ran against God's clear instructions. So, he says here that you can worship Him in vain. And when we borrow customs that are not a part of Christianity and use those to quote-unquote serve God, obey God, or worship God, we're doing it in vain. So, Christmas is worshiping God in vain. Point seven.

You can't put Christ back into something that He was never in.

Can't put Him back into Christmas. You hear this all the time. Well, we need to put Christ back into Christmas. Well, what they're talking about is that people need to talk about Christ more. You look at Christmastime instead of all the commercialisms, Santa Claus, and so on. Jesus Christ was never in Christmas. So, you can't put Him back in it. If you're never in it, Jesus Christ is in something. You know what that is? He's in you and me, for one thing, through His Holy Spirit. Back in Genesis 1 and 2, when God created the heavens and the earth, it says, He rested on the Sabbath day and He hallowed that day. What makes a day holy?

It's because God's presence is in that day. God makes it holy. We're not holy. God's very holiness and presence is in the annual festivals and the weekly Sabbath. That's why they are referred to as holy days. And, consequently, He's in those. Is God's presence in the pagan customs? And the answer is no. God was never involved in Mithra, Mithraism, or Baal worship, or Babylonian mystery religion. He was not involved in those. So you can't put Him back into something that He was never in. Point number eight. The Bible nowhere tells us to observe a holiday celebrating Jesus Christ's birth. If so, tell me where it is. It doesn't say that, but it clearly commands us to celebrate His death. Not His birth, but His death. Where do you find any of the apostles teaching the Church to observe Jesus' birth? You just simply don't find it. It's explained in the Gospels, but it's explained as part of, here He was, He came, He was God in the flesh, Immanuel, God with us. He grew up, and He died for our sins. He came to die for mankind so that we could have our sins forgiven. So the Bible places a great deal of emphasis on the annual Holy Days, but not on observing Christ's birth. Point number nine. Christmas obscures God's plan for mankind. The Holy Days, as we know, picture the plan of God sequentially. The Passover, that Christ is our Savior, He was willing to die for us so that our sins could be forgiven. The Days of Unleavened bread picture coming out of this world, coming out of sin, being given the power to be able to do that. Of course, Pentecost pictures the giving of the Holy Spirit, the establishment of the New Testament Church, and the firstfruits, the work that God was going to do, leading up to His second coming. Then we come to the Feast of Trumpets, the return of Christ to the earth, the Day of Atonement, Satan being locked up, Feast of Tabernacles of Millennium, then finally the last great day when God will resurrect all people who've never had a chance of salvation and give them a chance. Okay, now we come to Christmas. What is it picture in the plan of God? It doesn't. What is Easter picture in the plan of God? It doesn't. These are just quaint stories and fables that are mixed in with supposedly some part of the Bible, and yet that God condemns. The Holy Days picture the plan of salvation. Observing the false Holy Days, or the false pagan days, I should call them, creates a totally false emphasis on mankind and does not point them in the right direction that God would have us to go. And that brings us to point number 10.

We would rather celebrate the Holy Days than Jesus Christ and the Apostles observed than something that mankind has devised. So, we would rather keep the days that God says than what mankind comes up with. So, brethren, here we are. We're at this time of the year again where we're surrounded. All we have to do is go out in the lobby, and you see all the paraphernalia out there. But we need to know and know that we know and know why we know why we do what we do. And so, I wanted to show you that without realizing it, many people are passing false ideas about Santa Claus and lying to their children and actually ascribing to him characteristics that apply to God. And I think we all understand that and realize it, but there are reasons why we don't keep these days, and we've covered them. I think we'd be good for you this week, you know, to go back and reread what God has commanded us to do. Maybe think a little more about why we don't do what we do. I'm sure there are more than just these 10 reasons that I've given you. You may have a whole bucket of reasons why you don't keep Christmas. So, brethren, let's realize that God has revealed to us his way of life, and he has said that we are not to add to it, and we're not to take away from it.