Reason For The Season

The Reason for the Season

It’s finally here, the holiday season. Outside of the Super Bowl, it is the biggest commercialized event of the year. The world is a wild jungle of individuals on a shopping frenzy. The Nativity scenes enlightens landscapes across the map, lights bedeck the borders of homes, garlands and wreaths of flowers hang on the entrances of many American homes, and you just have to sit back and ask yourself that all important question-Why? Someone will tell you. They probably would say, "It’s the Christmas spirit!" And, "Deck the halls with boughs of holly, tis the season to be jolly!"

I don’t know about you but for me to spend that much money on decorations would lessen the amount that I could spend on presents. Moreover, if I’m going to indulge into the gaiety and splendor of anything, I must first know if it is pleasing to God. Remember the first commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods before me,(Exodus 20:3) And "whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." (I Corinthians 10:31) God has a jealousy for us so bad, and I mean bad in a connotative matter, that according to Exodus 34:14,15 His name is Jealous:

For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a-whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice.

Is Christmas a legitimate Christian holiday? Does God have a problem with us celebrating it? Well today Church, we will have a look at the word of God, and know for sure whether or not Christmas is in harmony with the Truth. In other words we will take a look at the reason for the season.

[GIVE SERMON TITLE AND PRAY]

I have to give you some background on December the 25th. And if you are out there pondering why should I go there when you already know that Jesus wasn’t born on that day, then I say to you that you ought to know better. According to the book The Two Babylons, pages 91-103, the Christmas Day festival wasn’t celebrated until the fourth century when the Roman Catholic Church brought it into Christianity. Long before this, the ancient Babylonians celebrated the birth of the son of the queen of Heaven. Tammuz, the reincarnate of Nimrod, the sun god, was born to Semaramis, queen of Heaven, on the winter solstice of December 25th. This day was not called Christmas but "Yule’s Day" or "Child’s Day." And maybe you have been singing that carol, "The first Noel the angels did say, were to certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay!" Well let me tell you that is not the song that was sung, for it was "The first Noel Semaramis did say, Nimrod flew into the sun and left me pregnant today!" It was this Babylonian trinity that God through Jeremiah and Ezekiel warned the children of Israel not to worship during Israel’s captivity.

God in His word made this clear that we should not go after the practices of the world nor get accustomed to their customs of heathenism. In Leviticus 18:1-3, when the Lord brought Israel out of the land of heathenism he said:

I am the Lord your God. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: And after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.

In I John 2:15, "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."

Then in Jeremiah 10:1-5, we read:

Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord, LEARN not the way of the heathen, and neither be not dismayed at the signs of Heaven; for 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. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne [carried], because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

Sounds plain enough to me. "Hold on preacher, that text is not talking about just a tree," one might add. "That is talking about what they do to a tree after it has been cut out of the forest. They carve whatever image they want and overlay it with gold and silver." True! This text talks about the manner at which heathens go about making a false god, and what is so fascinating about it still is that they are still cutting trees out of the forest and fastening them with nails and decorating them with gold and silver ornaments or whatever color. It is not just a mold of an image. It is the Christmas tree. In verse 5, Jeremiah lets me know that the Christmas tree would be numbered with this text. You see it is no mistake that the Bible said upright as the palm-tree.