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This is the second part in a two-part series concerning the celebration of Christmas and God's position on it. The first feature was titled "Christmas—Can You Believe It (Part One)?" We recommend that you read or listen to the first feature before you proceed with this article.
The following is a recap of the first part of this series.
● The passing of time, or mixing truth with lies, cannot turn a lie into truth. You cannot look back through 2,000 years of compromise and gradualism to ascertain truth. You must go back to the "source" of truth. Pagan customs are, in fact, devil customs and are an open portal for Satanic action.
● God does not direct His children to observe this day.
● Christ was not born on December 25th.
● We are commanded against mixing Christ with devil customs.
● The church of the Scriptures did not observe a holiday called Christmas.
● America did not observe Christmas and it was against the law until the late 1800s.
● It was viewed as an affront to our Lord Jesus Christ.
● Jesus hates the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes.
● The doctrine of the Nicolaitanes taught the mixing of Christianity with pagan devil customs and winking at fornication. The celebration of Christmas embodies these things.
● There was a sect of Nicolaitanes in Rome around the time Christmas made its debut.
● Constantine legalized Christianity and paganism infiltrated its ranks.
● It is commonly believed that the Pope instituted December 25th as Christmas in order to adopt and absorb the tradition of the pagan Saturnalia festival.
NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.
GOD SAID: Jeremiah 10:1-4:
Learn not the way of the heathen,...
GOD SAID, II Corinthians 6:15:
What concord hath Christ with Belial?...
GOD SAID, Luke 16:15:
...for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God,
MAN SAID: It's fine to mix pagan (Satanic) customs with the Lord Jesus Christ. God is not opposed to it. It's a good way to sanitize paganism.
Now THE RECORD:
Section Three: God's Word teaches that Satan is the master weaver of evil—meticulously plotting to snare the unsuspecting. He lays his traps very well. Understanding Satan's rebellious spirit is important if a believer is to war against him successfully. Isaiah 14:12-14 declare the spirit of Lucifer when Lucifer says, "I will be like the most High." It is Satan's desire to be like God.
II Thessalonians 2:1-4 speaks of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and some things that must first happen. It reads:
1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,
2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
Remember, Satan wants to exalt himself as God.
It's important to note that Satan had some idea about how God planned to make a way of escape for fallen man. The Scripture prophesied a myriad of times of the coming Christ and the work that He would do. Satan laid his look-alike traps far in advance, and December 25th will be an obvious one.
Tracing the root of Christmas leads directly back to the great-grandson of Noah. This man's name was Nimrod (Genesis 10). He arrived on the earth shortly after the great flood. Nimrod was the founder of the city of Babel, where the people decided to build a tower unto heaven. God was highly displeased with their efforts. He threw down their tower, confounded their language, and scattered them abroad. The wickedness and confusion of Babel, which became the city of Babylon, extends all the way to the end of the world as we know it. Revelation 17:5:
And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
According to the ancient historian Josephus, Nimrod excited the people to have contempt for God and to consider it a piece of cowardice to submit to God. According to antiquities, Shem, the son of Noah, put Nimrod to death because of his great wickedness. Antiquities record that Nimrod married his evil mother, Semiramis, and they propagated occult activities. After Shem, the son of Noah, destroyed Nimrod, his mother-wife, Semiramis, claimed that an evergreen tree sprung forth from a dead stump overnight and that on each anniversary of his birth, Nimrod would visit the evergreen and leave gifts upon it. December 25th was the birthday of Nimrod.
In his pagan deified form, Nimrod is known as the sun-god, or Baal. On December 25th, in the year 274 A.D., the Roman emperor Aurelian, who was an ardent worshipper of the Syrian sun-god known as Mythra, or Baal, proclaimed the sun-god principal patron of the empire and dedicated a temple to him in the Campus Maritus. Not many years later, Constantine took the mantle of leadership. His family worshipped the sun-god before his conversion, and a mixture of Nimrod the sun-god with the Son of God appears thereafter. One thing is certain, Christmas originated when the cult of the "sun" was particularly strong in Rome.
December 25th was held in honor of Nimrod, the Babylonian Messiah. The day was called Natalis invicti solis, "the birth-day of the unconquered Sun."
Should it be any surprise to you that Jesus Christ and this false devil sun-god are both Messiahs and both share the same supposed birthday of December 25th?
Is it any surprise to you that the new translations such as the NIV have changed Lucifer's name to morning star, a name given to Jesus Christ, "the bright and morning star" (Isaiah 14:12; Revelation 22:16)? The lines are being masterfully twisted. Satan, in the minds of the rebellious, is becoming like God.
I must remind you of one thing I pointed out earlier: Satan wants to be like God. He imitates the things of God for the purpose of deception. The Scriptures are laden with prophecies of the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, and of what He would do to redeem mankind: Satan knows the Scriptures very well and twists them masterfully. Watch Satan's handiwork in this passage from the book, The Two Babylons:
Even where the sun was the favourite object of worship, as in Babylon itself and elsewhere, at this festival he was worshipped not merely as the orb of day, but as God incarnate. It was an essential principle of the Babylonian system, that the Sun or Baal was the one only God. When, therefore, Tammuz was worshipped as God incarnate—that implied also that he was an incarnation of the Sun. In the Hindu mythology, which is admitted to be essentially Babylonian, this comes out very distinctively. There, Surya, or the Sun, is represented as being incarnate, and born for the purpose of subduing the enemies of the gods, who, without such a birth, could not have been subdued.
Again from The Two Babylons:
The Babylonians, in their popular religion, supremely worshipped a Goddess Mother and a Son, who was represented in pictures and in images as an infant or child in his mother's arms. From Babylon, this worship of the Mother and the Child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, the Mother and the Child were worshipped under the names of Isis and Osiris. In India, even to this day, as Isi and Iswara; in Asia, as Cybele and Deoius; in Pagan Rome, as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer, or Jupiter, the boy; in Greece, as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, or as Irene, the goddess of Peace, with the boy Platus in her arms; and even in Tibet, in China, and Japan, the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the counterpart of Madonna and her child as devoutly worshipped as in Papal Rome itself; Shing Moo, the Holy Mother in China, being represented with a child in her arms, and a glory around her, exactly as if a Roman Catholic artist had been employed to set her up.
Satan shows his true colors in one of Egypt's symbols of the sun-god. Researcher Alexander Hislop reports the following:
In Egypt, one of the commonest symbols of the sun, or sun-god, is a disc with a serpent around it. The original reason of that identification seems just to have been that, as the sun was the great enlightener of the physical world, so the serpent was held to have been the great enlightener of the spiritual, by giving mankind the "knowledge of good and evil."
Satan wants to be like God.
Something else is important in understanding why December 25th was the day chosen to worship the devil sun-god. In ancient times, as well as now, as winter proceeds day by day, each day gets shorter and shorter until the shortest day of the year is just prior to December 25th. (In the Northern hemisphere, it is December 21 or 22 and is called the winter solstice.) Then on the 25th, the sun begins its return to the Eastern sky where each day gets longer and longer far into the month of June. The heathen feared the potential loss of the sun and brought their sacrifices to the sun-god Baal and, of course, they were "rewarded" because the days began getting longer. God speaks to the children of Israel in Jeremiah 10:1-2:
1 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:
2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
We are commanded against learning the way of the heathen for they are dismayed at the signs of heaven. The cycling of the sun is surely one of them.
When we read the rest of the message dealing with this concept of idolatry, it makes some very startling statements again in Jeremiah 10:1-9.
1 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:
2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
6 Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O LORD; thou art great, and thy name is great in might.
7 Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.
8 But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities.
9 Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of cunning men.
This passage was written nearly 600 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. Here we find the "Christmas tree.” Some have followed the Christmas tree as far back as pre-Jesus Germany, and then for some reason, stop. Germany was not its beginning. Again, researcher Alexander Hislop recounts the condition of this thing prior to Christ. He says:
The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan Egypt. In Egypt, that tree was the palm-tree; in Rome, it was the fir; the palm-tree denoting the Pagan Messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith.
The following excerpt is from the History Channel's website:
In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak. They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last the sun god would begin to get well. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong and summer would return.
The grand conclusion of the matter of Christmas is as follows:
Section #1
● God does not direct His children to observe this day;
● Christ was not born on December 25th;
● We are commanded against mixing Christ with devil customs;
● The church of the Scriptures did not observe Christmas;
● Americans did not observe Christmas and it was against the law until the late 1800s;
● Christmas was viewed as an affront to our Lord Jesus Christ.
Section #2
● Jesus hates the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes;
● The doctrine of the Nicolaitanes taught the mixing of Christianity with pagan devil customs and winking at fornication. The celebration of Christmas embodies these things;
● There was a sect of Nicolaitanes in Rome around the time Christmas made its debut;
● Constantine legalized Christianity and paganism infiltrated its ranks;
● It is commonly believed that the Pope instituted December 25th as Christmas in order to adopt and absorb the tradition of the pagan Saturnalia festival;
Section #3
● Satan masterfully weaves his web to snare the unsuspecting in an effort to make himself God in the minds of the rebellious.
● Satan had some idea of God's plan to make a way of escape for fallen man and laid look-alike traps.
● Nimrod, the rebellious, the sun-god, the father of Babel and Babylon, has a birthday on December 25th.
● Nimrod visits the evergreen on his birthday and leaves gifts. God said, "Learn not the way of the heathen,"
● Nimrod, in his pagan deified form is known as the sun-god, who is Baal, and also known as Mythra and various other names in different cultures.
● The Satanic sun-god and Jesus supposedly share the same birthday and pagan rituals.
● The shortest day of the year occurs just before December 25th and on the 25th the sun begins to shine longer on the earth until deep into June. God said, "Learn not the way of the heathen,"
Judges 2:11-14:
11 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim:
12 And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger.
13 And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.
14 And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies.
Baal, of course, is Nimrod, the devil sun-god, whose birthday is December 25th. Ashtaroth is another name for his supposed wife-mother—by the way, another name for Ashtaroth is "Easter." Is it becoming obvious? Do you see the devil's doctrine of the Nicolaitanes which Jesus said He hates?
The fruit of the spirit of Christmas—besides drunkenness, fornication, and self-absorption—is to mix pagan devils' customs with Christianity in order to make Christianity more palatable to those who are not willing to pay the whole price. The fruit of this compromise is a church filled with congregants who will compromise their stand on the Word of God whenever just enough social pressure is applied, regardless of the issue. The following short list of issues these congregants are willing to cast behind them contains:
● Holidays;
● Men and women in the pulpit;
● The worldwide flood;
● The crossing of the Red Sea;
● Divorce;
● Alcohol consumption; and
● Homosexuality, among many other things.
II Corinthians 10:12:
For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
Don't let your confidence be in the fact that the vast majority are doing it. Jesus, when defining the everyday activities that would be going on at the time of His returning, said in Matthew 24:37:
But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
The last time I checked, there were seven people in the Ark with Brother Noah. The numbers of born-again people who leave this globe to meet Jesus Christ in the air will, as usual, be a remnant. My job and yours is to make sure it includes us and everyone else we can convince of the saving blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
GOD SAID: Jeremiah 10:1-4:
Learn not the way of the heathen,...
GOD SAID, II Corinthians 6:15:
What concord hath Christ with Belial?...
GOD SAID, Luke 16:15:
...for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God,
MAN SAID: It's fine to mix pagan (Satanic) customs with the Lord Jesus Christ. God is not opposed to it. It's a good way to sanitize paganism.
Now you have THE RECORD.
References:
King James Bible
The Anchor Bible Commentary
"Christmas Unwrapped," The History Channel video
Complete Works of Josephus, p 30
Del Re, G. & P., The Christmas Almanac, Doubleday & Co., 1979
The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary
Hislop, A., The Two Babylons, Chick Publications
The History of Santa Claus, Films For The Humanities & Sciences
McKenney, T.C., Holidays & Holy Days, WFLM Publications, 1987
Miles, C.A., Christmas Customs and Traditions, Dover Publications
Morris, H., Daily Bread, Institute for Creation Research Publications
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church
The Real Story of Christmas, www.historychannel.com
Strand, R., Fascinating Facts About Jesus, New Leaf Press, 2000
USA Today, 12/26/02, p 7D
Webster, N., American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
