BEWARE OF CHRISTMAS!

The world calls the 25^th of December “Christmas.” So today we want to take a closer look at that word “CHRISTMAS!” 

 At this time of the year, people all over the world gather from far and near to their various ancestral homes to celebrate “Christmas.”

Season’s greetings, seasonal music, and Santa Claus are all associated with this holiday. All these appear to bring warm feelings to those who celebrate it.

Why do people think that Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year? In time past, it certainly felt wonderful to me because I trusted what my parents told me. They were merely teaching me what their parents had taught them. I never questioned the true origin of Christmas!

Also, Christmas is thought by most people to be the most wonderful time of the year, focusing the participants on giving, family togetherness, beautiful music and decorations, feasting on special foods and singing Christmas carols throughout the neighborhood. All of this is supposedly centered on the worship of Jesus Christ.

Most people never reflect on why they believe what they believe or do what they do. We live in a world filled with customs, but few ever seek to understand the origin of those customs. 

We generally accept them without question. Most people basically do what everyone else is doing because it is easy and natural!

Is the word “Christmas” found in the Bible? No! It is not found anywhere in the Bible. Now, if Christmas is not Scriptural, where then does it come from? What then is the origin of this pagan festival?

Consider the following admission from a large American newspaper (The Buffalo News, Nov. 22, 1984): “The earliest reference to Christmas being marked on December 25^th comes from the second century after Jesus’ birth. It is considered likely that the first Christmas celebrations were in reaction to the Roman Saturnalia, a harvest festival that marked the time the sun stands still, and honored Saturn, the god of the sun.

In the year 325AD the Roman Emperor Constantine tried to do away with paganism so that he can make Christianity the major religion in the world. Prior to that time, the biggest festival in the land was that called Saturnalia, a harvest festival that marked the time the sun stands still. This festival was to honour Saturn, the god of the sun.

This celebration starts on December 17 of the Julian calendar and later expanded with festivities through to December 23. During this time the Romans worshipped the deity called Saturn.

The ancient Romans used this time to celebrate Saturn because it was during winter Solstice. The winter Solstice announces the symbolic rebirth of the Sun, the lengthening of days, and the promise of renewed life.

At this time, the Sun is in a very specific position in the Sky. Saturn is the Roman god of harvest and reaping the hay. Saturn was worshipped in a winter celebration called Saturnalia.

The word Saturday was named after his name Saturn. Sunday is named after the Sun.

So Constantine though, “Since everyone is already celebrating it at this time, let’s make it the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.”

So Christmas is a PAGAN CELEBRATION declared the birthday of the Messiah by MAN.

The Bible declares, “Beware (watch out) lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8).

Another translation puts it this way, “See to it that no man takes you captive by Philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”

Realize that at this time most people worshipped multiple deities. Constantine wanted to make Christianity the most powerful religion on earth, so he incorporated this heathen festival into the Roman Catholic Church. He slammed the Roman Catholic holiday on the pagan holiday so that it will be easier for people to convert to Catholicism.

A pagan is anyone holding religious beliefs other than those of Christianity (the bible). It means a heathen, an idolater, and an infidel. Pagans worshipped the Sun.

Christmas developed as a means of replacing the worship of the sun with the worship of the Son. By 529 A.D., after Christianity had become the official state religion of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinian made Christmas a civic holiday.

The celebration of Christmas reached its peak in the medieval period when it became a time for conspicuous consumption and unequaled revelry (rough, noisy and rowdy festivity).

The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt.” Further, “Pagan customs centering round the January calends (the first day of the month in the ancient Roman calendar) gravitated to Christmas.”

In the 5^th century the Western church ordered the feast to be celebrated on the day of the Mithraic rites of the birth of the sun and at the close of the Saturnalia, as no certain knowledge of the day of Christ’s birth existed.

Christmas is actually the celebration of Saturn (the sun). People celebrate Christmas on December the 25^th because it was a pagan sun-worshipping holiday that the Roman Catholic Church incorporated in order to convert the heathens to Catholicism. This is exactly why you should not celebrate this Christianized pagan holiday.

It is a Roman custom catholicized by the Roman Catholics. They Christianized the pagan holiday. God forbids it because it is a heathen festival. It is idolatry!

“When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;

30 Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.

31 Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.

32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it” (Deut. 12:29-32).

That was precisely what the Roman Catholic Church did when they decided to worship their god with merry making, giving gifts, bringing green trees, and taking time off their work. God says, “Don’t do that.”

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 says, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?

15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial (Satarnelia)? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

In Revelations 18:4 God said, “Come out from her My people……………………”

Therefore, Christmas is simply a Catholic, pagan, superstitious holiday. It is not Christian. 

1 Corinthians 10:20-21 says, “But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. 21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.”

To celebrate Saturnalia is to have fellowship with devils. To celebrate the birth of Christ with Saturnalia under a different name (“Christmas”) is a pagan festival filled with all kinds of drinking and festivities, to celebrate Saturnalia, the god of fire.

You cannot bring paganism into Christianity and claim to be worshipping the Son of God to honour His birth. Those pagan holidays were worships unto devils and not unto God. You cannot worship the devil and claim you are worshipping Jesus Christ. You may not know or remember the origin of those pagan holidays, but God remembers.

This is true: we have to keep the ordinances the way God said it should be done.

In 1 Corinthians 11:2 Paul says, “Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.”

Paul never delivered to us any ordinance to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on December, the 25^th.

In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus said, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

You have to do it exactly the way Jesus instructed. Don’t add anything to it. Don’t remove anything from it.

What about the Christmas tree? And some may ask, “Will God mind if I put a Christmas tree in my house?” Yes, God won’t like it because it is idolatry. Why is it idolatry? Now, hear the instruction from the very lips of Jesus Christ:

“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” (Jer. 10:2-4).

This is what the heathens do. God says, “Don’t do that.”

Look at what God said about an abomination like the Christmas tree: “Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing” (Deut. 7:26).

God condemns the putting up of pagan (Christmas) trees with this plain Bible command! This plain description of the modern Christmas tree is clear. God directly refers to it as “the way of the heathen.” Just as directly, He commands His people not to learn the way of the heathen, calling these customs “vain.”

Pagans had long worshipped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian veneer by the Church.

The question is, “Who made up this lie and forced it on the church?”

The modern Christmas tree originated from Germany. The Germans got it from the Romans, and the Romans got it from the Babylonians and the Egyptians.

The following demonstrates what the Babylonians believe about the origin of the Christmas tree: “An old Babylonish fable told of an evergreen tree which sprang out of a dead tree stump. The old stump symbolized the dead Nimrod, the new evergreen tree symbolized that Nimrod had come to life again in Tammuz! Among the Druids the oak was sacred, among the Egyptians it was the palm, and in Rome it was the fir, which was decorated with red berries during the Saturnalia!” (Walsh, Curiosities of Popular Customs, p. 242).

Frederick J. Haskin’s Answers to Questions states, “The Christmas tree is from Egypt, and its origin dates from a period long before the Christian Era.” So, the Christmas tree long preceded Christianity.

Let us now go back to the issue of Christmas. Just as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, so too worshippers of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were recruited by the Church sanctioning “Christmas Trees” (Clement Miles, Christmas Customs and Traditions: Their History and Significance, New York: Dover Publications, 1976, pp. 178, 263-271).

One additional source reveals how the Roman church absorbed Christmas into an official celebration. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1946 edition, states, “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the church…Certain Latins, as early as 354, may have transferred the birthday from January 6^th to December 25^th, which was then a Mithraic feast…or birthday of the unconquered SUN…

The Syrians and Armenians, who clung to January 6^th, accused the Romans of sun worship and idolatry, contending…that the feast of December 25^th, had been invented by the disciples of Cerinthus…”

Thus, a pagan festival, celebrated long before the birth of Christ, found its way into recognized Christianity.

Did you know that even the 17^th century Puritans of New England understood how wrong Christmas was? They actually banned its observance by law in 1659, throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Fines and imprisonment could result from being found keeping it. It was almost 200 years (1856) before people stopped working on Christmas in Boston. The Puritans knew its roots and labelled it “heathen, papist idolatry.”

Remember that one of Satan’s names is Destroyer (Rev. 9:11). Nimrod/Saturn/Molech/Baal, like Satan, is the fire god who destroys and devours little children.

The entirety of traditional Christianity is actually worshipping Nimrod/Saturn/Molech/Baal on the 25^th day of December.

The modern mother/child “Mary/Jesus” emphasis, including the worshipful adoration of Mary by millions, is a parallel with Nimrod and his mother, Semiramis, that cannot be ­ missed.

You are not celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ at all. And if you are, you are making a mockery of it. How? This is because:

a) You drink more alcohol on His birthday than any other day in the year.

b) Many ignorant Christians become spiritually weak after the Christmas festivals?

c) Their zeal for the things of God dwindles after the Christmas festivals?

d) We have the greatest manifestations of the works of the flesh during and after the Christmas festivals?

e) We have the greatest number of all forms of accidents at this time of the year?

f) We have the greatest number of fornications and adulteries at this time of the year. The Bible says, “Because they ate and they rose up to play” (Ex. 32:6-7).

g) We have the greatest number of abortions after the Christmas celebrations?

h) We have the highest number of highway robberies at this time of the year?

i) We have the greatest cash flow during Christmas season. Thereafter, there is financial crisis everywhere especially in January?

j) We have the highest number of ritual murders especially of infants at this time of the year? Why? Because of the sacrifice to Satan at this time of the year – the satanic high days!

And you have turned the so called birthday of Jesus Christ into a commercial foolishness. Santa Claus has knocked Jesus Christ out of the top spot, and the merchants who don’t even believe in Jesus Christ are busy selling to you foolishness, making themselves richer and making you poorer for another year on the basis of a lie. And that is why they call it Xmas (Ex- mass) because you don’t really know who it is that you are worshipping.

Here is the point of what is being explained: Many speak of “putting Jesus Christ back into Christmas.” This is heard every year from thousands of pulpits and elsewhere. But the true Christ was never there! Just as a person cannot go back into a room that he had never entered, Jesus Christ cannot be “put back” into an event that He has never been in, and that He in fact hates!

Jesus said, “Howbeit in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mk. 7:7).

The truth is that the Jesus that these preachers and religionists have in mind is another Christ, one with another gospel, another spirit — the Christmas spirit — bringing totally different doctrines and teachings. Can you see the connection?

Christmas is all about worshipping a false god! Don’t follow the multitude to worship the spirit behind Christmas! Worship only the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

In Exodus 23:2 God said, “You shall not follow a crowd to do evil.” Don’t do something just because everyone else is doing it. You must not let anyone persuade you to do things that are contrary to the Word of God – you must do what is right and fair.

The big question is: As a Born Again believer, are you supposed to join in this celebration? No, you are not justified to join the multitude (the rest of the world) in this celebration which takes place on the 25^th of December, annually.

Why not? God does not permit His children to be part of such pagan celebrations (Ex. 23:2).

The Born Again believer is expected to live a life of non-conformity to the world. Romans 12:2 says, “And be not CONFORMED to this world: but be ye TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

As a Born Again believer, you are in the world but not of the world. In John 15:18-19 Jesus said, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”

In John 17:14 Jesus said, “I have given them thy Word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

As a Born Again believer, any time you desire the things the people of the world are doing, you are backsliding.

Jesus instructed us saying, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever” (1 Jn. 2:15-17).

The believer who has made Heaven his/her goal should steer clear from worldliness in its various forms and shapes.

What is Worldliness? a) Worldliness is doing things according to the pattern of this world. b) It is doing things like the people of the world (like the unbelievers). c) Worldliness is anything that connects you to the world.

Once you are worldly by any measure, you have declared yourself an enemy of God – you cannot enter Heaven.

“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (Jam. 4:4).

Look at one of God’s promises for anyone that overcomes the world: In Revelation 21:7 Jesus said, “He that overcometh (the world) shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be My son.”

Now, since the Bible did not give any specific date for the birth of Jesus Christ, you should never join the rest of the world to celebrate it on the 25^th of December. You should rather celebrate this great happening every day of your life.

That which the world celebrates on the 25^th of December is a heathen festival called “Christmas.”

What is the meaning of Christmas? It is a combination of the words “Christ” and “Mass.” Therefore, Christmas is the Mass of a religious service to mark the birth of Christ. Listen, the service to commemorate the birth of Christ is not bad. What is bad is the Mass.

Why is Mass bad? Mass is bad because it contradicts God’s Word and is therefore, an abomination to God.

Why is Mass an abomination to God? It is bad because it is a heathen practice that began during the reign of Emperor Constantine of Rome in 325 AD. It is celebrated according to the Roman custom, and not according to the custom of Christ – the living Word of God. Come to think of it, you cannot go to celebrate the birth of Christ in a shrine.

What is Mass? Mass is the ritual of chants, readings, prayers, and other ceremonies used in the celebration of the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic Church.

The word Mass comes from the Latin missa (“sent”). It was taken from the formula for dismissing the congregation: Ite, missa est (“Go, the Eucharist has been sent forth”).

Beloved, better know that anything outside the Word of God is not the will of God and it is coming from the pit of hell. At the opening of the Vatican II, Pope John XXIII reaffirmed his belief in the doctrines of the Council of Trent (Ad Limina Talks, p. 68). The Council of Trent maintains that Mass is “A true propitiatory sacrifice.”

In Hebrews 10:11, the Bible declares, “And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.”

The Mass practiced in Roman Catholicism is almost identical to the custom of a “bloodless sacrifice” practiced in the Roman Empire during the time of the first formation of the Catholic Church.

Look at one of the appointed prayers of the Roman Litany, addressed to the wafer, in the celebration of the Mass” “Bread-corn of the elect, have mercy on us” (The two Babylons, by Rev. Alexander Hislop, Loizeaux Brothers, 1916, p. 163).

Mass in Igbo means “Ichu aja” [sacrifice]. The Mass is considered an actual sacrifice of Jesus Christ each time it is celebrated. It is believed that each time Mass is celebrated, Jesus Christ is sacrificed afresh: He is worn the crown of thorns afresh; He is nailed to the Cross afresh; and He dies afresh. If this is true, then when Mass is celebrated twice in a day, then they would have sacrificed Jesus twice in a day. They sacrifice their “Jesus” over and over again each time Mass is celebrated.

But God’s Word declares that Jesus was sacrificed ONCE and for all times (Heb. 9:24-26, 28; 10:10-14). So when you join in this idolatrous worship (custom), you’re simply saying that God is a liar.

Conclusion: “Christmas” is a Roman Catholic pagan holiday which the Catholic Church changed the name and incorporated it into Catholicism. Therefore, as a Christian, God forbids you from celebrating it because it is IDOLATRY. Remember that idolatry has disastrous consequences. We shall be considering this subsequently.

As a Christian, you ought to celebrate the birthday of Christ every day for saving your soul. Therefore, I pray that you will repent today, quickly remove that "Christmas tree" in your house, and stop being part of this pagan holiday, pretending that you are celebrating the birthday of Christ. God’s grace!

Watch out for the next edition of Good News from the Pulpit!

• Your friend: I. I. MADUBUNYI (Senior Pastor)                   25. 12. 2018 

Questions:

1. Should a believer say to people, “Merry or happy Christmas?”
2. Should a believer receive gifts from people at Christmas?
3. Should a believer sow new dresses at Christmas? 
4. Should a believer cook special food at Christmas?