"And the Lord said to Moses, say to all the assembly of the Israelites, you shall be Holy for I the Lord your God am Holy". Leviticus 19:1-2

In the last days, there shall be a people that desire and seek Holiness. God shall have a people that are. I am one that wants to be. Are you? In Exodus 20:3-5, the Lord says, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation."

We are approaching the time of year known as the Christmas season or the birth of Jesus. I wonder? Do you know what the word Christmas means or where it comes from? Though it includes the name of Christ, it also mentions "mass". The word is an attempt to merge two conflicting systems together. The word "mass" represents a pagan and heathenistic ritual and is a pollution of the Lord’s name. Ezekiel 20:39 says, "Pollute ye My Name no more."

If we diligently search the Scriptures, we can calculate the time of John’s birth and Jesus was six months younger than John.

Also, it was the time they went to pay taxes which also was the time of a great feast, the Feast of Tabernacles. I wonder, possibly was Jesus born on the day of the Feast of Trumpets at the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles? That falls at the end of September and the first part of October. The historian Josephus believes so. In Luke, Chapter 2, it tells us that shepherds were in the field watching their flocks by night, so it had to be a time when some grass could still be found. We know that in late December, the flocks are all in the corrals and have to be fed because it is too cold, and the grass is dead. Well, so what? One day is as good as another - maybe!

Hosea 4:6 tells us: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge - because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou has forgotten the Law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."

What takes place at the Christmas season? Children think more of santa than Jesus. "Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, 0 house of Israel: thus saith the Lord, learn not the ways of the heathen, and be not dismayed at them. 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 ax. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not." Jeremiah 10:1-4

Balls, lights, holly, mistletoe, and trees -- this is a description of our present day Christmas tree which the children of Israel were setting up to worship. A Babylonian custom, in honor of Nimrod, Noah’s great grandson, who was killed because of his wickedness. His wife Semiramis, the mother of Tammuz, claimed that he (Nimrod - who the Bible says was a mighty hunter for the souls of men) had come back to life again in the person of her illegitimate son Tammuz, who she lived with as her husband when he grew up. This also is where the holy mother and son worship of the Roman church came from. Nimrod built Babylon.

The decorations on the tree, where did that come from? The balls represent and are in honor of the sun, worshipped as the sun god. The candle or lights represents "the illuminator of the material world and the enlightener of the souls of men by the sun god," but the Christians think it is pretty and nice and do not realize they are coming under a curse from God for it. You are bringing that which represents worship to another god into your house. Holly and mistletoe are all part of pagan and heathen worship ceremonies. The way we use it represents those things that are an abomination unto the Lord. We may have been ignorant of these facts, but God holds us accountable.

Santa Claus - Have you ever looked up in your encyclopedia to see what it says? Our children are taught and think and look up to and expect more from santa claus than they do of Jesus. Santa is more their Jesus than Jesus is. Do you ever wonder why children lie? Because they are taught lying by their parents things like, santa is coming, santa this and santa that. It is lying!

God requires holiness. Deuteronomy 7:26 tells us, "Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thy house, lest you be a cursed thing like it, but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing."

Ephesians 1:4 (Amplified) "... Even as in His love He chose us - actually picked us out for Himself as His own - In Christ before the foundation of the world; that we should be holy, consecrated and set apart for Him and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love."

In Revelation 18:2, it says, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird ..." Verse 4,  "Come out of her My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

(Reprinted from November/December 1981 edition Voices From His Excellent Glory)

[Back to Ponder]

LHBC HOME