Christmas is coming!
But where did Christmas originate? Was Jesus born on December 25th? If Christmas is the chief of the Christian holidays, WHY do so many non-Christians observe it?
The word "Christmas" means "Mass of Christ. It came to the Protestants from the Roman Catholic Church. And where did they get it? NOT from the Bible - NOT from the original apostles who were personally instructed by Christ - but it gravitated in the fourth century into the Roman Catholic Church from paganism.
Notice how specific God’s warning to Israel in Deuteronomy 12:29-31 was, and why; “29 The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, 30 and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” 31 You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.”
Christmas is not a command of God—it is a tradition of men. Whenever Christians longed for true spirituality and returned to the Bible as their source of all practice and belief, one of the first things they did was to forsake the unscriptural Christmas celebration. Examples include:
• In England in 1644, parliament banned Christmas, calling it “the Profane Man’s Ranting Day”.
• In America, “In 1659, Massachusetts passed a law fining anyone caught celebrating Christmas
If Christmas were really of God, the world would hate it! But the same sinners who hate Christ, love Christmas. The biggest thieves, drunkards, liars, adulterers and hypocrites love Christmas. They love the parties, the festivities, the carols and the feasting and the merriment, but they hate everything that is truly spiritual.
The establishment of December 25 evolved not from biblical precedent, but from pagan Roman festivals held at year’s end. It occurred each year around the beginning of winter, or the winter solstice. This was the time when the sun had taken its lowest path across the sky and the days were beginning to lengthen, thus assuring another season of growth.
Those festivals included the Saturnalia (Dec. 17-24) culminating into Brumalia of December 25th, in honour of Saturn, god of agriculture. The planet Saturn was later named after him because, among all of the planets, with its rings and bright red colour, it best represented this god. His birthday was celebrated on December 25.
The Brumalia, celebrated Sol— the sun god, who was apparently also born on 25th December. He was celebrated and worshipped because heat from the sun was required to allow for planting and growth of crops. He was worshipped in this dead-of-winter festival so that he would come back (he was the “sun”) and warm the earth again so that spring planting could occur.
Even the lighting of fires and candles as a Christian ceremony is merely a continuation of the pagan custom, encouraging the waning sun-god as he reached the lowest place in the southern skies.
In Babylon's "Mystery" system of idol worship, the sun was called "Baal. This is how he is referred to in most of the scriptures.
Virtually every civilization has a fire/sun god. The Greeks named him Kronos, as did the Phoenicians—but they also called him Saturn. The Babylonians called him Tammuz (as Nimrod, resurrected in the person of his son). The Persians called him Mithra. The Druids called him Molech or Baal.
Saturnalia (today re-incarnated as Christmas season) was a rowdy time. In Rome, the Saturnalia was the most vile, immoral feast that ever disgraced that pagan city. It was a season of license drunkenness and debauchery. It was a festival of merrymaking. They enjoyed it! The spirit of revelry prevailed, and the entire city wantonly indulged in the filthiest sorts of immorality imaginable.
Isn’t it plainly obvious that though its name has been changed, the same spirit of merriment is present in our modern day Christmas celebrations? There is no doubting the fact that Christmas is the day of feasting, dancing, and the most drunken, immoral time of the whole year. Is this the way to celebrate the birthday of Christ?
Any liquor salesman would tell you that more alcoholic beverages are bought, sold, given, and consumed at Christmas than at any other time of the year.
That fact alone assures me that Christmas is not of God! If it were, it would be a time of holiness and repentance, of drawing closer to God and turning from sin. It would be a time when true spirituality and godliness abound. Instead, just the opposite is true. How God must grieve over the brazen sin of polluting His holy name with this abominable filth.
Where did Saturnalia originate? It originated with Nimrod from the tower of Babel. Here is what Genesis 10:9 says of Nimrod, “He was a mighty hunter before the LORD.” He actually tried to replace God.
The famous Jewish historian, Josephus records this evidence of Nimrod’s role in the post-flood world. He says, “He also gradually changed the government into tyranny…He [Nimrod] also said he would be revenged on God, if He (God) should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach…Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and they esteemed it a piece of cowardice to submit to God” (Bk. I, Ch. IV, sec. 2, 3).
Nimrod, it is said, married Semiramis. Through her scheming and designing, Semiramis became the Babylonian "Queen of Heaven," and Nimrod, under various names, became the "divine son of heaven." In this false Babylonish system, the "Mother and Child" (Semiramis and Nimrod reborn) became chief objects of worship. This worship of "Mother and Child" spread over the world. The names varied in different countries and languages:
• Among the Canaanites, she was Asherah and her son Baal.
• In Egypt it was Isis and Horus.
• In Asia, Cybele and Deoius.
• In pagan Rome, Fortuna and Jupiterpuer.
• In India they were Isi and Iswara.
• In Greece we find Ceres and her son Plutus,
• Even in Tibet and China the mother was Shing Moo, and her son was devoutly worshipped with her.
• The above Paganism was apparently Christianised into mother-Mary and son-Jesus celebrations.
Hence, long before Christ was born, December 25th was the most widely recognized and celebrated holiday of ancient times among the idolatrous nations. This day was universally recognized and celebrated as the birthday of the sun god, known by different names in different places. He was Horus among the Egyptians, Baal among the Canaanites, Tammuz among the Babylonians, Mithra among the Persians, , Saturn among the Romans, etc.
Finally, Rome, through the Roman Catholic Church, handed down these various forms of pure idolatry of the ancient Chaldean "mysteries”.
From that source has emanated the greatest "mystery" idolatry of all ages. For Rome has given to the world this mother and child worship of wicked Babylon of old, concealed beneath the Satanic disguise of a commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ.
How was this blasphemy accomplished and Christianised?
About the 4th century, the Roman Church brought the worship of Semeramis the Babylonish queen of heaven and her son Tammuz into her ritual, disguised as the worship of Mary and her son Jesus. Then followed the December 25th commemoration of the birth of Christ.
Prior to the 4th Century, Christians were few in number, and were persecuted by the government and by pagans. But, with the advent of Constantine as emperor, who made his profession of Christianity in the fourth century, placing Christianity on an equal footing with paganism, people of the Roman world began to accept this now-popular Christianity by their hundreds of thousands.
To make Christianity more acceptable to the Pagan Romans, Emperor Constantine recognized Sunday, which had been the day of pagan sun worship, as a substitute day of Christian worship, replacing the Holy Sabbath.
The SON OF GOD was also being identified with the pagan physical SUN, Their pagan-festival date of December 25th (birthday of the SUN-god), was also substituted to be the birthday of the SON OF GOD. (New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge).
Those pagan festivals began to be “Christianized” in the year 350, when Pope Julius I declared December 25 to be Christ’s birthday. Solar imagery came increasingly to be used to portray the risen Christ (who was also called Sol Invictus-named after the Roman sun-god Sol), and the old solar disk, became the halo of Christian saints.”
Do you honestly think God looks with favor upon such a mixture? This is what God says in Ezekiel, “As for you, O house of Israel, thus says the Lord God: Go serve every one of you his idols, now and hereafter, if you will not listen to me; but my holy name you shall no more profane with your gifts and your idols..? (Ezekiel 20:39).
By 529 A.D., after Christianity had become the official state religion of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinian made Christmas a civic holiday, and THAT is how "Christmas" became fastened onto the world.
Saints, December 25th is NOT the birthday of Jesus, the true Christ! The apostles and early true Church never celebrated Christ's birthday at ANY time. There is no command or instruction to celebrate it in the Bible.
But how do we know?
• Number one, Jesus was not born in the winter season! When the Christ-child was born "there were in the same country shepherds ABIDING in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night" (Luke 2:8). This never could have occurred in Judaea in the month of December. The shepherds always brought their flocks from the mountainsides and fields and corralled them not later than October 15, to protect them from the cold, rainy season that followed that date.
• Number 2. The Bible records that at the time of Christ’s birth, Caesar Augustus had decreed that “all the world should be taxed … and all went to be taxed, every one into his own city” (Luke 2:1,3-7). It was because of this tax that Joseph travelled to Bethlehem, “To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being with child” (vs. 5). While in Bethlehem, unable to secure a room in which to lodge, Mary delivered her child in a stable behind an inn. Certainly this could not have occurred in the winter. Caesar would not have ordered such a taxation then since it would have been virtually impossible for everyone to comply.
Now come two arguments often used to justify Christmas observance.
Many will reason this way: "That, even though the exact date of Jesus' birth is unknown, should we not select SOME date to celebrate as His birthday?" Besides, we don't observe it to honor the false god, we observe it to honor Christ."
But how does God answer in His Word? "Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them [the pagans in their customs]... that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? Even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Eternal, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods" (Deut 12:30-31).
We must be different from the world. We must be a light set on a hill, a holy, peculiar people (cf. Matthew 5:13-16; I Peter 2:9). God says to the church in our generation to come out from spiritual Babylon; come out from all that is a false religion. “Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins.” (Revelation 18:4)
Christmas observance is a TRADITION OF MEN, and the commandments of God, as quoted, forbid it.
God’s command number 2 states thus, "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 of them that hate me" (Ex. 20:4, 5)."
But won’t we deprive the children if we don’t celebrate Christmas?
Deprive them of what? The truth? Christians, we are responsible to bring up our children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4), not in the ways of the world. We are responsible to teach them the truth, and to walk in the truth ourselves! God is seeking those who will forsake the false ways, who will lay aside the traditions of men, who will worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, and will not compromise the truth!
Everything about Christmas holiday is false, corrupt, idolatrous and pagan. It is one big lie!
Sermon Delivered by Elder Timothy Ogada at Mt. Olives SDA Church Ngong Wednesday Vespers on 17th December 2025.
