Presents
Christmas
Truth or Error?
by Emerson A. Wilson
The Universal
Festival
In the light of
God’s eternal Word, we want to look at the season called the Christmas season
and see what attitude we as people of God should take towards it. Before the Lord ever began to open up these things to me,
I was made to wonder. I knew that Christmas was held in as high esteem as any
holiday season we go through. Yet, I watched the thing as people go through it
and got into the pressure of it. It was not long before I began to notice that
right up to the last couple of days I could hear more and more people on the
streets and in the stores saying, “I will be glad when this thing is over.” I
wondered why, if it were as wonderful, religious, and Christian as man claimed
it to be, should people be glad when it was over? The more I studied, the more I
saw that the spirit which was engulfing people was a spirit that was putting
them under bondage. I observed that it was merely a customary thing, and they
were bound by that custom.
The first chapter of Matthew states that a virgin was with child of the Holy Ghost, and that child was given to “save His people from their sins.”
This Gift was not only to forgive us of our sins, but to give us power to live above sin. The devil, or great enemy, has worked hard since the birth of Christ to annihilate this Gift that God sent to save mankind. One of his greatest ways of doing that is by amplifying falsehoods that they might glare in a greater way and take the place of truth, which he cannot kill. We are living in a world that is full of things the devil has amplified and is amplifying to take our minds from the vital things that we really need to know and to replace them with falsehoods.
Lip worship lets people draw near God with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him. We need to see that this thing is still in operation yet today in a greater and more amplified way. The enemy of souls has taken the commandments of God, removed them far from the minds of men, and placed commandments of men in their stead. This leaves people in the same shape as those Jesus met-they drew near Him with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him (Matthew 15:6-9). The commandments of men cannot change the heart and make new creatures out of us. Thank God, the commandments of God can!
There is nothing so sad as seeing a Christless world trying to rejoice in Christ. To me it is just as sad to see a Christless world trying to rejoice in Christ as it would be to see a prisoner trying to rejoice in freedom while he is yet bound and under a sentence of certain death. He cannot rejoice in freedom because he has no freedom! This is the condition that is exhibited so much in the day and age in which we are living. When the world does try to put on a season of thankfulness and praise, it has to be a sham and a form, because there is no reality from the heart. Rejoicing and praising God has to begin down in the heart, and then work out from there.
The words of Jeremiah, the prophet, are being fulfilled over and over. False prophets have cried, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. Millions have tried to believe it and to practice something that they do not have really. Because of this, much of religion has become a big sham.
If it were not for all the substitutes in religion,
honest-hearted people would find the truth more readily. There are so many
stumbling blocks and substitutes, and there are so many ways for man to ease his
conscience that he fails to come to the place of finding real redemption at the
feet of Jesus Christ and knowing the freedom that only He can bring. In Luke
16:15, Jesus said, “. . . Ye are they which justify
yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for THAT WHICH IS HIGHLY ESTEEMED AMONG MAN IS ABOMINATION IN THE SIGHT OF GOD.” This Scripture is still a good balance with which to weigh things. If the millions who are living in the sin and corruption of this world without a real experience of God can find a level to rejoice in, the Scripture lets us know that it is not of God.
People have been sold on the thought that the Christmas season is a Christian festival. The devil deceived people when he wrapped Christmas in a Christian garb. He is using that very thing to kill the effectiveness of salvation because people think that when they enter into that season, they are entering into a ‘Christian season. Since it is so far from what real Christianity is, the devil has used it to sour millions on real Christianity. THE CHRISTMAS SEASON IS JUST A FESTIVAL. There is nothing Christian about it! If the Christmas festival turned people to Christ, our world would be Christian by now. The word Christmas is not mentioned or even hinted at in the Bible.
Jeremiah 10:3 states that the customs of the people are vain. Vain means “empty, unreal, deceitful, producing no good results.”
Try the Spirit
I agree wholeheartedly that there is a Christmas spirit, and
the Christmas spirit is one that has to be worked up. On the other hand, the real Spirit of God will flow out of the heart. The Christmas festival is not Christian because of the spirit of it. Let us go right to the heart of it. John warned us in I John 4:1, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” Jesus Christ said that you “shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” You will not have to be bound by the customs of men!
The whole world partakes of Christmas-those who despise the Gospel and fight holiness and sinners with characters as black as midnight join hands together to promote Christmas programs, play. Santa Claus, and adorn their dwellings. They will go to any length to celebrate a tradition about the birth of the Son of God, while, at the same time, they do not love Him and do not live according to His Word.
Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments”
(John 14:15~. People feel that they have a certain love for
Christ because they are honoring His birth when they have no love for Him whatsoever.
Isaiah 53:3 says, prophesying of Jesus, “He is despised and rejected of men . . . .”” Let us face it-if we could find in God’s Word (no man will find it) where God ordained that one must keep the 25th day of December to remember Christ’s birth and told how to commemorate it, you would see a rising up and the world refusing to obey. Because this thing is a tradition, a custom, and contrary to God’s Word, the world is ready to take hold of it. When it comes to the truth and commandments of Christ, the world does not want to obey.
The morning-time church did not keep Christmas. The colonists that came here from Europe were Christian people and did not believe in pagan festivals and holidays.
Do you realize that in Russia, a godless nation, they keep the winter festival, and they all have Christmas trees and exchange gifts just as Americans do?
The Origin of Christmas
Where did the thought of Christmas come from? It cannot be a celebration of Christ’s birthday because this celebration on December 25 was inaugurated and in practice for hundreds of years before Christ ever came. Any encyclopedia you wish to look into says that December 25 was a festival, the Saturnalia. This festival, in honor of the birthday of the sun god, Saturn, was the celebration of a new day and a new sun following the shortest day in the year. Roman Catholicism got it from the pagans and changed its name. However, they went right on with their pagan festivities just as they did when they wor-shipped the sun god. They worshipped Saturn by cutting down fir trees and bringing them into their houses and decorating them with silver and gold, as well as exchanging gifts and getting drunk.
When the people of God fell away from truth, they whitewashed an old pagan custom and gave it a Christian name; but the truth of the matter is, they have you following the same old practices the pagans followed. Most every part of what is called the Christmas celebration is pagan in its origin and form. The church in the falling away mixed Christian names into pagan practices, but the morning church did not celebrate Christ’s birthday.
Christ’s Birthday?
We do not know the date when Christ was born. I have read after different commentators. They tell about those who have studied and tried to put all history together to try to even . get somewhere in the right month and week when He was born; but they cannot do it. When God hides something, it is hid! Why does God not want us to know when His Son was born?
It is because He lived before He was born. John 1:1, 14 says:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . And the Word was made flesh . . . .~ Furthermore, God does not want us to celebrate Jesus’ birth because His birth means nothing whatsoever without His death, burial, and resurrection.
If God had wanted us to celebrate Jesus’ birth. He would have given us an ordinance. Then the customs would have all been excluded. He wanted us to keep His death, so He gave us an ordinance. If we are going to try to celebrate Christ’s birth some way, we would have to choose a custom because there is no God-given way to celebrate it.
Let me repeat that He gave us an ordinance to keep in remembrance of His death. Why did He put so much emphasis on His death and very little on His birth? Why at His death did the heavens turn dark? It was because His death is what the gift was really wrapped up in. His birth means nothing with-out His death. We find nothing in the book of Acts putting emphasis on the birth of Christ, but the apostles continually preached about His death, burial, and resurrection. Why? Paul declared that if Christ be not raised from the dead, you are yet in your sins.
I want to show you how unfair the religious world is. They will acknowledge that many of the festivities of the holidays are mere customs, but insist that we all ought to do them anyway. On the other hand, they claim that feet washing, which is an ordinance (read John 13:15-16), is just a custom, and they are not going to do it. Why? They love the reveling, but do not like to put forth a sincere effort to worship according to God’s truth. Jesus said they strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.
Birthday celebrations were considered by the Jews in Christ’s day as an idolatrous worship, according to the People’s Encyclopedia, although any encyclopedia will give the same information. Ecclesiastes 7:1 states that the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth. Therefore, 11 why would God want us to worship His Son’s birthday?
There are two birthday celebrations mentioned in the Bible. (In fact, the word birthday is only mentioned three places in the Word of God, and two of the times it is recorded on the same occasion.) In both cases, the men were heathens. Pharaoh, on his birthday, hung his baker. Herod, on his birthday, cut off John’s head for telling the truth. You can read for yourself about these birthday celebrations in Genesis 40 and Matthew 14.
Anywhere you look into the Scripture you will see that God was more interested in the death of Christ than He was
His birth. Consider the Transfiguration. When God sent Moses and Elijah down from the courts of Heaven to talk with Jesus, what did they talk about? His birth? No, they talked about
His death. We need to realize we are in a falling-away time, spiritually speaking. We look at the folly of it: A world in darkness claims to have a festival to commemorate the birth of the Light of the world. They love the festival, but they do not want anything to do with the King.
Jeremiah said that the customs of the people are vain. I would like to bring this to your memory just as food for thought: It was a custom that released Jesus Christ to the cross. ReadJohnl8:39.
The Christmas Tree
What about the Christmas tree? We are just prone to accept things and to never look into them to see why we are doing them. I liked the Christmas tree. I thought with all the lights off
except the tree lights that it was about the prettiest thing I had ever seen. I was sitting and looking at a Christmas tree one night when I first started in the ministry. I had the feeling everybody has at that time of the year. All at once, God began to talk to me and said, “What is there about the tree that reminds you of Me?” I answered, “Why, it is a. ..~ He said,“What kind of a preacher are you going to be: likening Me unto trees? All through the Old Testament, I would not allow them to build anything to liken Me unto.” That thing began to lose all of the beauty that it had. The Christmas tree was just carried over from the pagans. It is just as much a heathen custom
today as it was back then. Bringing an evergreen tree into the house and decorating it is following pagan customs, and we never will show Christ to the world by following pagan, godless, Christless customs. Jeremiah 10:1-4, 6 reads: “Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, 0 house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; the heathen are 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 axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not . . .. Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, 0 Lord . . . .”
In the beginning, God made man in His likeness. When man fell, there was nothing that man could make or take that could be made unto the likeness of God until Jesus Christ came along. After He brought redemption and lifted us back to a perfect plain of holiness, then we represent God again. Nothing can be made like God but a new creature in Christ Jesus. We are the living trees, the planting of the Lord, adorned with the light of the Word as we put on the Gospel. Christians are the most beautiful Christmas trees ever looked at!
We will take Bible and history both. There is a book called The Gathering compiled from different encyclopedia writers. It condenses the Christmas customs. I want to quote from it for your benefit:
“Even many centuries before Christ, evergreens were an emblem of eternal life. The cold winter killed most plants, but the evergreen remained a tree of life that did not die. Many pre-Christian people worshipped nature. They reverenced trees and brought them into their homes as symbols of the gods. In winter, just after the shortest day of the year, they celebrated the birthday of the sun with evergreen-a proof that life continued and did not die. From the fifteenth century in Germany comes the story of the great reformer, Martin Luther.
He brought home a small fir and placed many lighted candles upon it to illustrate for his children the glory of the
starry heaven above the stable in Bethlehem the night that Christ was born. The first written chronicle that we have of the Christmas tree is an old volume of 1605 when many German people in Strasbourgh decorated and adorned firs in their homes. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, all Germany had adopted the Christmas tree as a Yuletide tradition. They bedecked it with stars, angels, sweetmeats, tinsel, gilded nuts, and glowing candles. The delightful custom spread to Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, most of Europe,i ~ and then to the United States.” What happened? People took a pagan custom and gave it a meaning. God, under His law to His people in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, does not want us to take any kind of an image and liken it unto Him or make it as a representation of Him.
God would not have us take a fir tree to be the symbol of something that Christ did, for He wants us to be fir trees-ever green. Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). We do not have to take a tree as a symbol of what Christ did, for we are trees that are symbols of what Christ did-trees of righteousness. Read Isaiah 61:1-3. He would have us to be evergreen, just as trees planted by the water. When the heat is put on, no matter what happens, that tree is evergreen. See Jeremiah 17:7-8. Because our roots go to the river, we are not held up or kept alive by circumstances. Our roots are in Jesus Christ. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Thank God, we can stay evergreen!
If the evergreen tree is a symbol of everlasting life (actually, you kill life when you cut down the tree), what about the aluminum trees? What are they a sign of?
Friend, we are not going to exemplify God, we will not better our world one bit, and we are not going to shed a bit of light in our darkened world by following these pagan practices that have been handed down over the years.
The Giving of
Gifts
Now, let me say something about the giving of gifts.
People’s Encyclopedia says that it is not a Christian, but a Roman custom. Bright boxes beneath the tree, little gifts upon the tree, packages buried in stockings-no other season is filled with the spirit of giving as is the Yuletide. People like to hide behind the fact that the wise men brought gifts to Jesus and say that is the reason they are giving.
The People’s Encyclopedia says, “The earliest gifts of the winter season were pagan gifts of greenery, boughs of laurel, olive, myrtle, and mistletoe which were meant to bring health and long life to the receiver [a superstition]. With the Romans, these gifts became sweets’ precious stones, and coins given at the winter festival of the sun.” Every one of these points back to the worship of the sun god.
We give as the wise men gave, so they say; but Ictus see if that is true. The wise men brought gifts to Jesus, but they were not Christmas gifts because they did not come to see Jesus in the manger. Jesus was a young child living in a house when the wise men came (Matthew 2:11). The wise men followed a custom of their day. No one approached a king, a magistrate, or anyone in high authority without bringing a gift. The Queen of Sheba brought gifts to Solomon. Why? Because she was coming before a king.
That custom is carried on in our society today. Before a man will make an appointment with the President, he will send him a gift. When our President goes to a foreign land, he takes a gift. The wise men bringing gifts to Jesus was just a custom, my friend, and has nothing to do with us giving to one another in any way.
The Scripture says, “Freely ye have received, freely give.” That means God wants us to freely give that which we have received from Him-not something of our own. We say that it is Christ’s birthday, but everyone gets a present except Him.
There is nothing wrong in giving a gift of appreciation. However, the custom of giving Christmas presents has so gripped the people that they feel duty-bound to do it. Loan companies get rich from many people who go beyond their means and borrow money to buy them. They feel that they have to do it because it is the custom of the people. It is nothing more than commercialism.
Christ’s work suffers during this season. Some even lose their experience with Christ because of the strain they are put under. Christmas is becoming a longer season all the time. It begins before Thanksgiving now. Almost every clerk who works in a store would like to have a vacation from Christmas to New Year’s Day because they do not want that mad job of exchanging the gifts that did not suit the recipients.
When we go into history, we find that gift giving was unheard of as a Christmas custom until the latter part of the third century. Someone may say, “We just do it to give the children a good time.” Well, that is all right if you want to do it, but don’t do it under the cloak of honoring Christ’s birthday. To know how to give good gifts to our children almost takes divine wisdom. Let us look at what often happens when Christmas time comes. The parents go to the bank and borrow all the money they can, or run up their charge accounts, to get their child a sled, a bicycle, and ice skates. There is no snow, so he cannot use the sled. There is no ice, so he cannot ice-skate. It is raining, so he cannot ride the bicycle. He is all befuddled. He becomes-angry and throws the skates through the window, kicks the spokes out of the bicycle, and wishes he had not received anything.
How do you give good gifts to your child? When it is ice-skating season and he needs ice skates, get him some. Let him use them when it is in season. When it comes time to slide with a sled and he can use one, get him a sled. When the season is appropriate for riding a bicycle and he needs one, get him a bicycle. (When it comes time to discipline him, give him that, too.) He will appreciate the gifts a lot more and get a lot more good out of them.
Many people give large gifts at Christmas time, thinking there will be some peace of soul to be found. However, peace is not the outgrowth of goodwill. Goodwill is the outgrowth of peace. When you find peace from God, you will have goodwill toward all men.
The Santa Claus Myth
Now, let us consider Santa Claus-Santa Claus with the
accompanying white lies and deception.
Santa Claus is the symbol of a Roman Catholic bishop who was wealthy and got enjoyment out of putting on clothes of poverty, going through the streets, and giving great gifts to the people. My friend, there was One richer than he. There was One who had a richer Father than Saint Nicholas had. Jesus came down in poverty, and He not only gave us gifts, but He gave Himself. He gave His life upon the cross.
Statistics show us that many, many little children even in the United States know nothing about Jesus Christ but are well aware of Santa Claus. People feel it is a thrill to tell their children there is a Santa Claus. It may be a thrill, but you are doing something to your little children that they may never get over. The devil will work there right when the little child’s character is being formed. He is building up faith in humanity and in his father and mother-faith that he will need to guide him when he gets into his teen-age years. So many get away from you in their teen-age
years because you killed your influence the only time you could build it. Right at that time, the enemy of your soul will cause you to build up Santa Claus. When you tell one lie, you have to tell some more to keep it going. Many parents think it is a great thing to see how old a child can get without finding out there is no Santa Claus; but little do they realize that they have let those children get up to maybe 8 years old without knowing the truth-then it about breaks their hearts. You have killed confidence and put a question in their minds of anything you tell them after that.
Arise and Shine! Exodus 23:2 says, ‘Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.” Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”Another applicable Scripture is II Corinthians 10:4-5:“(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing [Christmas has the highest place on the calendar] it has exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedienceof Christ.”
God says, “Come out of her, my people.” The cry is to come out of godless Christendom, out of Babylonian confusion, out of the burlesque of religion that masquerades under the name of Christ. We need to be awakened from our sleep of complacency and be different along these lines!
We have all seen the sign, “Put Christ Back in Christmas.” However, Christ never was in Christmas, and He never will be in it. You cannot put Him in it. Christmas is merely a custom.
The prophet Isaiah gave two commands to the Church:
arise and shine. Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
Friend, it is one thing to receive light. It is another thing to arise and let it shine. It is a third thing to arise and let it shine in such a way that people will see God in us. It is going to mean something if you take hold of light that God gives you and, by the direction of the Holy Spirit, let it shine in such a way that you can get light to others. If you are not careful, you can grab the understanding you have, take a sharp axe, cut yourself off from everybody all around you, and not do anything but make a mess.
One of the things of walking in the light is laying aside the works of darkness. Have no fellowship with the works of darkness, that which is against the Bible, against God, and against Christ, that which points to false gods and to paganism.
Have no fellowship with the works of darkness in your individual lives, the part you have a governing factor over. The Bible does not say do not have fellowship with people, but do not have fellowship with the works of darkness. Do not look down on your neighbors, your relatives, your co-workers, or people at school because they do not understand what you understand. Go cautiously and let them have a chance to see. Remember, there was a time that you and I did not recognize the error of the Christmas season. We had a chance to see. Give others a chance to see. Let the Spirit of God direct you in every move you make. He will guide aright.