THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTMAS by R.F. Becker "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips: but their heart is far from me" (Matt. 15:8) "...Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15) "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21) PART ONE - What is Christmas - These three verses from God's Word should be intensely startling to anyone who is in the habit of celebrating Christmas. They ought to search out the very depths of the conscience and bring a conviction and condemnation to every Christian who has been active in any way, in the festivals of Yuletide. From these words of the Spirit, we should have no trouble understanding that what ever is very popular in the world is not of God. They place the unerring finality of Omnipotence on the decree, "That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." They also present to our innermost being the chilling fact that people are not always at heart what they appear to be. And again, here we find a lesson as positive as it is appalling, that the saints of Christ are often, even if unwittingly, led through man's traditions into idolatry, which thing God hates. We all know holiday seasons are very popular. Any time of festival seems to have great sentimental appeal to the hearts of most people. Add to this emotional expectation, the complex of a conscience which compels a vague respect of the day when Christ supposedly was born and we have - the Christmas spirit. No date on the calendar is welcomed more. Old and young - rich and poor - pious and vulgar - saint and sinner, with boundless frenzy, race with the coming Christmas day like the waters of a flooded river, submerging everything before it. Christmas is the day when the driving power of this festival love reaches its zenith. No other day can equal it for fleshly revelry, and debauchery combined with the heathen misrepresentation of Christ which, as a fanatical religious orgy from every quarter swirls to a literal vortex of confusion and jamboree on December 25th. No - Christmas is NOT of God. It is abomination to Him. It is NOT honoring to Jesus Christ. It only calls forth from multitudes of unthinking people a natural sentimentality and a false worship of Him. The observances of Christmas are in no way inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Christmas spirit is only terrible mockery to Him. Christmas time is not a season of revival and upbuilding in the church of God. Instead it is a pagan spell of evil, which spreads spiritual pollution as it rages among churches and believers for the time appointed. Thousands of evangelical believers who would be horrified and deeply depressed to find a professor smoking or drinking or dancing, calmly and deliberately indulge in idolatries of the heathen at Christmas time.. And those who know and love the truth are counted to be narrow minded and sacrilegious if a protest is raised. So, such honest souls are forced to stand aside and witness annually this glittering cloud of pagan observances descend with a smoldering and paralyzing pall on all people. And as we watch parents, who loudly proclaim the necessity of truthfulness in children, who advocate the need of so many social reformations and who bemoan the juvenile delinquency which prevails, deliberately teach their unsuspecting little ones the monstrous Santa Clause lie, we can only cry with the Apostle John "I wondered with great wonder" (Rev. 17:6 R.V.) "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?" (Jer. 5:30-31) PART TWO - The Origin of Christmas - The celebration of Christmas is a mixture of pagan Babylon's "mystery" idolatry in it's purest form, imported through Pergamos (Rev. 2:13) into Rome, and there incorporated into her pagan religious ritual, and from then introduced into the world by the Roman Catholic church as a commemoration of Christ's birth. A wealth of proof can easily be produced today to put this fact beyond question. It is freely admitted by all learned and honest writers of old, that the date of Christ's birth cannot be known. How then did it come to pass that the Roman Catholic church fixed Dec. 25th as the day He was born? First we must remember that Satan's chief object has always been to claim the honor and worship due the most High God. For it is written in Isaiah: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High." (Isa. 14:12-14) In keeping with these words of Isaiah long centuries before the time of Christ, Satan in his bid for the worship due to God, instituted a great pagan feast which was celebrated at that exact time of the year in the Chaldean city of Babylon. The heathen celebration was in honor of the birth of the son of Semeramis, or Cybele or Rhea, the Chaldeans queen of heaven. Now in Babylon where the sun was worshipped, it was not worshipped as merely a light giving divinity, but as the Incarnate God. And one essential in this Chaldean worship was, that Baal was that same God. So when Tammuz was worshipped as God incarnate the implication was that he was an incarnation of the sun, or Baal. When Belshazzar was slain (Dan 5:30) and the Chaldeans defeated by Darius the Mede, those with authority and power to continue Babylon's idolatrous "mystery" worship, fled to the city of Pergamos, where afterward a Christian Church was founded (Rev. 2:13). There for many centuries Satan himself brought about the worship of Aesculapius, the child of the "incarnate sun." This worship was celebrated in frantic excesses of evil as Babylon's "mystery" idolatries were perpetuated in their exile. Then in the course of time, at the death of Attalus III when Phyrgia was given to the Roman Empire in 133 B.C., the worship of pagan Babylon was removed from Pergamos and it's wicked course renewed in the city of Rome on the Tiber. Now, nearly every recorded form of pagan worship which has descended from the Babylonian "mysteries" focuses the attention of its deluded worshippers on the mother god and her child. In Egypt the mother and child are Isi and Osiris. In India they were Isa and Iswara. In Asia the mother was Cybele and the son Deoius. 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. Lastly, we have many records of the mother Fortuna and her son Jupiter in pagan Rome. In the worship of all these false gods there had been more or less departure from the original Babylonian form. Only in the Roman Catholic church can we find the 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 did this come to pass? In the third century when the Apostolic Church was in its infancy, grievous wolves entered among the flock of God speaking perverse and evil doctrines. Slowly and cautiously at first (Acts 20:29), they began to bring Rome's pagan worship among the believers. Constantine's false conversion and his edict making Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire, rapidly developed the imported paganism in the worship of the fast decaying Church of Rome. Now Rome's way of converting the other pagans to her style of worship has always been to absorb them gradually, along with their idolatrous observances. So about the 4th century the Roman church brought the worship of Sereramis the Babylonian 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, and the evil institution of the "mass" for Christ, and behold! - the iniquity of Christmas was launched forth! Thus the pagans in the now apostate church could worship the queen of heaven and observe the birth of her son Tammuz while the untaught unsuspecting believers thought they were honoring Christ in the same ritual. Behold the trail of Satan's Christmas festive ritual of counterfeit! From Babylon to Euphrates, to Pergamos once the capital of Asia, to Rome upon the Tiber and thence into the apostate Church there, finally to emerge through the Roman Catholic church a flood of lying pagan wonder, covering the earth. Faithful men of God who knew and loved the Scriptures of truth fought against the mingling of paganism with the name of Christ. They were valiant in opposing the entry of Christmas and its festivals among the believers. But in spite of their efforts, the lukewarm and rapidly decaying church, with the exception of a few faithful Christians, was overcome and finally forced to submit to the observance of the mother and child worship from Babylon. Sad and solemn has been the spiritual and moral wreckage wrought by this Romish evil down through the history of men. And in spite of the plain truths of the Word of God, revealing His holy hatred of idolatry, nearly all of the Protestant Churches and assemblies of Christian believers have followed Rome in her Satanic observance and unholy celebrations of Christ-mass. Now since the Roman Catholic church is truly the "Mystery, Babylon the Great" of Rev. 17, and the virgin in her sanctuaries is the real and actual Chaldean queen of heaven, and her blasphemous representation of the birth of Christ is, in fearful reality, a form of devil worship, how we should shrink from having any part in her heaven defying wickedness. For though some may consider the sin of idolatry a light thing, our God does not, no indeed, for the Almighty has attached the greatest of all threatening to the commandment forbidding false worship. "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) And shall we, who have been saved by the great grace of God through the atoning blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and who enjoy the liberties of a government founded by our Puritan fathers who themselves fled from Roman Catholic persecution, shall we join hands with that same false and bloody Rome which is daily adding to the fearful list of over 50 million martyrs of Jesus? Shall we embrace and love and celebrate with Babylon the Great, her festivals of iniquity, and shall we do so any longer with our eyes wide open, knowing that her Christ-mass is, after all, just Satan's pagan mockery of the birth of our only Savior and Lord Jesus Christ? And if, alas, too late we awake suddenly to find the relentless judgments of God bearing down upon our nation and people, can we not discern His own hand in fulfilling His Word for our national sin of following Rome into her glittering sanctuary of Christmas and Easter evils? PART THREE -Origin of Christmas Customs- The following quotations are from standards of authority on the origin of Christmas customs and observances. 1. In Alexander Hislops famous book "The Two Babylon's" the following quotation concerning the birth of Christ is on page 91... "There is not a word in the Scriptures about the precise day of His birth, or the time of the year He was born." 2. In Webster's Student Dictionary for Upper School Levels, page 145 (a Catholic dictionary used in our schools today) we read... "Christmas - Christ + mass. A church festival, December 25. Christmas day commemorating the birth of Christ." 3. In the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, 1903, Vol. 2, page 987 - we read... "Christmas - Christmas properly begins with the evening of December 24... and continues until Epiphany, January 6, the whole period called Christmastide. In the Roman, Greek, Episcopal and Lutheran Churches Christmas is observed as a religious festival with special services. It's celebration was formerly forbidden by the Puritans." 4. In the Encyclopedia Brittanica, 9th Edition, Vol. 5, page 611 - we read... "Christmas Day - There is however difficulty in accepting this (December 25th), as the date of the Nativity, December being the height of the rainy season when neither flocks nor shepherds could have been at night in the fields of Bethlehem. By the fifth century, however, whether from influence of some tradition or from the desire to supplant heathen festivals of the period of the year such as Saturnalia, the 25th of December has been gradually agreed upon." 5. The Encyclopedia Americana, 1942 Edition, Vol. 6, page 623 reads thus... "Christmas - It was according to many authorities not celebrated in the first centuries of the Christian church as the Christian usage in general was to celebrate the death of remarkable persons rather than their birth. A feast was established in memory of the birth of the Savior in the fourth century. In the fifth century the western church (Roman Catholic) ordered it to be celebrated forever on the day of the old Roman feast of the birth of Sol." 6. In the new Americanized Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1900, Vol. IX, page 5236, we read... "Saturn - an ancient Italian god... Saturnalis, this is the great 'Festival of Saturn,' celebrated on the 19th, but after Caesar's reform of the calendar, the 17th of December. Augustus decreed that the 17th and the 18th should be sacred to Saturn and the 19th and 20th to Opalia the festival of Ops. Caligula added a fifth day, 'The Day of Youth,' December 25th lasting seven days. The time was one of general joy and mirth. The wooden fetters were taken from the feet of Saturn and each man offered a pig. During the festivals schools were closed..." 7. The new Americanized Encyclopedia Brittanica, Edition 1899, Vol. XI, page 404, has this... "Befferna - a corruption of the word epipania (Epiphany) in the name of an old female character in Italian folklore, who was so busily engaged in housecleaning, when three wise men of the east passed by on their way to offer their treasures to the Infant Savior, that she excused herself for not going out to see them thinking she would have the opportunity of doing so when they returned. Not knowing that they went home by another road she has been ever since watching for them. She, like the Dutch Santa Clause, is supposed to take great interest in children, where in Italy a stocking of each is hung up before the fire. Soon the cry 'Ecco le Beffena' is raised when the children jump up and seize their stockings, each of which contains a present bearing value in proportion to the conduct of the child during the year. One whose behavior has been particularly bad finds his stocking filled with ashes in token of Beffena's displeasure." The custom of carrying an effigy called the Beffena on the 'Twelfth Night' in the procession through the streets is probably relic of one of the 'Mysteries of the middle ages.' " 8. The new International Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition, Vol. 3, page 27, tells us... "Epiphany - A festival held on the 6th of January be the Roman Catholic, Eastern and Anglican churches in commemoration of the manifestations of Christ. Three different events are included in this celebration. As early as the third century at least, it was observed as the commemoration of the baptism of Christ ... Later in the east it was taken to commemorate the manifestation of divine power in Christ's first miracle at Cana in Galilee ... In the forth century the birth of Christ was also connected with it by some writers. Many special observances have been connected with the day which under the name 'Twelfth Day, Twelfth Night' was a time of special merry making in England and closed the Christmas festivities." 9. In the "History of the Christian Church" by Fisher on page 65, it is recorded... "About the end of this period (3rd century) two festivals came in. One was Epiphany originating in the East - the other was Christmas, a festival of Roman origin taking the place of the heathen festival in honor of the sun or of the deity bearing that name, which was celebrated at the winter solstice or on the 25th of December, the time erroneously assigned for the solstice in the Julian Calendar." 10. In McAbes History of the Popes, Vol. 1, page 18, we find the following information given by Bishop Eusebius in his "Ecclesiastical History" ... "There was at the time (fourth century) an acute controversy about the date on which Easter ought to be celebrated. We must remember that Easter was then the greatest, if not the only ecclesiastical festival; for December 25th was the supreme festival of the pagan and Mithraic calendars and was an abomination to Christians." PART FOUR - Practical Considerations - 1. The name Christmas. This very name is an abomination to our Holy God. The reason for this is that the word Christmas is an unholy and pagan combination of the two words "Christ" and "Mass." Christ died once for our sins (Heb. 9:26). By that ONE offering He has perfected forever every believer (Heb. 10:14). But behold the terrible mystery on iniquity! For in the Roman Catholic mass, Satan himself has introduced unto the ends of the earth, the crowning blasphemy of Anti-Christ. It is the teaching that the 'mass' is not a mere representation of the sacrifice of Christ, but that it is a continuation of the same offering, as the priest commands our Lord Jesus to come down from glory and become a piece of bread. And besides all this, the Roman priest teaches that this same 'mass' adds to and improves upon the atonement of our Savior which He made on Calvary. Thus in the blasphemy of the 'mass' can we not hear Satan say "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds: I will be like the most High" (Isa. 14:14)? Christ is the divine title of our wonderful Lord and Savior. "Mas" is just the shortening of the blasphemous "mass" of Rome. Christ is the head of the true and living Church which He bought with His own blood. The Roman Catholic church under the headship of the Pope is verily the synagogue of Satan, the false church. She is spoken of in God's Word as "The Mother of Harlots and abomination of the earth" Rev. 17:5). Nothing in the realm of the natural will stir one to anger so suddenly as to learn of someone having connected the name of his wife, sister or mother with the name of a well known woman of ill fame. Christian, how then can you, with serene composure, and interested cooperation, join hands with Rome as she brazenly and wickedly blends the "mass" of the harlot church with the name of Christ the risen Head of the True Church of God? 2. The Christmas tree. The production and sale of evergreen trees in the U.S.A. has developed, thanks to Rome, into a vast enterprise. So while lumber is becoming scarcer and prices soar, millions of young trees are annually sacrificed to satisfy America's Christmas god, Tammuz. During the weeks of Christmas festivities one is met everywhere with these dead evergreen trees arrayed in their glitter and tinsel, reminding us of the lifeless pagan gods of old. But behold! as the fervor of the festivity dies down, out goes the stripped and bedraggled remains of the Christmas god into the junk pile or garbage barrel or to be kicked around the street! Yet thousands of untaught people will gladly go hungry and willingly deprive their families of necessary things in order to buy and decorate this same Christmas tree. The first decorating of an evergreen tree was done by pagans in honor of their god Adonis, who after being slain was brought to life by the serpent Aesculapius. The representation of this slain god was a dead stump of a tree. Around this stump coiled the snake Aesculapius symbol of life restoring. And lo - from the roots of the dead tree comes forth another and different tree - and evergreen tree symbolic to pagans of a god who cannot die! In Egypt this god was worshipped in a palm tree as Baal Tamar. The fir tree was worshipped in Rome as the same new born god as Baal Berith, who was restored to life by the same serpent, and a feast was held in honor of him on December 25th called the "Birthday of the unconquered Sun." Now in Babylon's "Mystery" system of idol worship the sun was called "Baal," the one and only god. So when Tammuz the son of the queen of heaven was worshipped as God he was also reverenced by the name Baal. Thus we can see how, in the annual custom of erecting and decorating evergreen trees, the Roman Catholic church has brought down through the ages to us, the paganism of Baal or the worship of the sun, mingled with the worship of Aesculapius the serpent. Whether erected in public or private, a tinseled and spangled evergreen tree is just a glaring symbol of the worship of this false god. So in keeping with the policy of Rome for centuries, while she keeps millions vainly supposing they do honor to Jesus Christ with the Christmas tree, they are actually even if unwittingly commemorating a pagan festival in honor of Baal, which thing our Go:14-15). It was not the wise men but the shepherds who came to visit the babe Jesus in His manger cradle in Bethlehem. They followed no star either as they did not even see one. They were informed of the birth of their Messiah by the angel of the Lord (Luke 2:10). Our country teems with covetous men who have made the Christmas season a profitable one indeed for themselves. And through their misrepresentations of the Bible the land abounds at the same season with all sorts of literature, cards, books and programs of celebrations, which utterly confuse the facts written in God's Word about the birth of Jesus. Shepherds and wise men, angels and stars, stable and manger, manger and house are misrepresented. The visit of the shepherds and the wise men are confused, so that the whole story of the birth of Christ becomes a distorted combination of truth and error. Long ago King David said to a carnal generation like ours, "Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?" (Psalm 2:1) 7. God's Judgment. One more point we dare not overlook concerning Christmas. The very source of Christmas equipment condemns the tradition. Until World War II nearly all Christmas goods were stamped "Made in Germany" or "Made in Japan." Thus these very goods, used by England and the United States to pollute the worship of God and make whole nations to sin, came from the very countries God used in bringing His judgment of war upon us. How did such poor nations finance so great a war? By selling us the fruit of their cheap labor among which Christmas goods played a major role. Ought we to regard this as a mere coincidence? Ought we not rather to see the threatening of God in it? NO COUNTRY IN ALL HISTORY HAS TURNED TO IDOLS AND THEN PROSPERED SO LONG! The national fear and unrest, the ominous rumblings in the various world councils, the low standard of morality, the universality of open sin, along with the wickedness of idolatry and unbelief, all point to one great event we may soon see come to pass, the fall of our nation. FOR IF THE SIN OF ROMAN CATHOLIC PAGAN IDOLATRY IS NOT NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED AND CONFESSED AND FORSAKEN WE CAN ONLY LOOK FOR NATIONAL DOOM. If it is increased and developed and our nation goes on with her open idolatry, her legalized gambling, her mountainous liquor corruption, her disregard for the Truths of the Bible, her desecration of the Lord's Day and the maintenance of pagan festivals, all which are backed by the Roman Catholic Church, we may be sure of one thing, The Lord's anger will not be "turned away", but "His hand" will be "stretched out still" (Isa. 9:17). "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people" (Prov. 14:34) "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil" (Ex. 23:2) 8. Perhaps some well-meaning but untaught Christians will say, "We only keep Christmas to give the children a good time." Let me give you some questions to consider. (1) If you are a Christian how can you teach little ones to delight in and love a Christmas tree which actually is a pagan symbol of sun and serpent worship? (2) How can you before the all-seeing eye of God tell your children the lie about Santa Clause and his reindeer? You should read Rev. 21:27. Do you think that the God who holds our destiny in His hand will preserve the freedoms of our future generations if we make them a nation of liars? (3) How can you have a brazen boldness to tell your children you are a Christian, and then connect pagan idolatry to the birth of Christ? (4) How can you help a bewhiskered clown dressed like a dunce, who is hired by some commercial establishment to lie to children all day long, betray your own trusting child into a maze of falsehood to save your face before Christmas idolaters? (5) How can you expect your children to have any confidence in whatever you teach them, when they find you have lied deliberately to them for years about Christmas and Santa Clause - and during those years you punish them for telling untruths? (6) Does not your heart smite you as you think of them growing up in servitude to the pagan observances and celebrations of Rome, instead of the real truth of the gospel of Christ? (7) how can you have the shameless boldness before God, to teach your children paganism and the Word of God at the same time? Do you expect that God will spare a people, whose chief delight is to make a mock of the birth of His Son? (8) Does not your conscience accuse you as you combine the story of our adorable Savior with the Roman heathen idol, the Christmas tree of Baal-Berith? (9) How can you expect your children to believe you, that they must worship Christ alone, if they see you indulge in an annual festival which had its beginning among the devil worshippers of ancient Chaldea? (10) How can you expect your child to believe your witnessing to him about Christ when he finds out you have been lying to him about Santa Clause and his reindeer, etc.? (11) Do you believe that a festive season that not only came to us through Rome from Babylon, but in itself is a system of perpetual lying to little children, is of God? (12) Can you teach your children to honor the Lord and the Lord's Day and then help them engage in honoring a heathen god, Baal-Berith, a Christmas tree and all the God-dishonoring observances connected with it? (13) How can you tell your children with a clear conscience that you are a child of God yourself when they annually watch you celebrate a Romish Christmas, and lie to them like a child of the devil? "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them" (Matt. 7:20). "Train up a young child in the way he should go; when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6) PART FIVE - Conclusions for your Meditation - It may be you saved up money to buy Christmas gifts and cards and decorations and a tree. Be sure, this is not pleasing to God, fellow Christian. Let me sugge been committed the care of God's flock, do you not care if our church and nation drift on to disaster? Dare you stand in you pulpit between God and your people and yet not raise your voice against those idolatries which have caused America to be weighed in the balances and found wanting? O Pastor watchmen, can you not see that God will require this nation's blood of your hand if you refuse to heed the handwriting on the wall, and if you allow Babylon's idolatrous pageantry and revelry to prosper in the Church of God for whom Christ dies? TO MY FELLOW BELIEVERS IN CHRIST "Wherefore my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry" (1 Cor. 10:14) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is but one excellent tract on this topic. For more information and suggestions, send a measly $1.45 to: Chapel Library, 2603 W. Wright St., Pensacola, Fl. 32505. Ask for tracts: (#142 - "My Lord has not told me to do it,") (#221 - Ten reasons why Christmas is unscriptural,") and (#260 - "Xmas;") along with booklets (#455 - "Is Christmas Christian?") and (#498 "Truth about Christmas, Good Friday & Easter.") Also ask for a free catalog of books and tapes for loan, as well as their free newsletter, the "Free Grace Broadcast." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TO ALL FELLOW CHRISTIANS CONCERNED WITH APOLOGETICS, ANTI-CULT STUDIES, CHURCH HISTORY, OR REFORMED THEOLOGY, THE FOUNDATION FOR BIBLICAL STUDIES IS HERE FOR YOU. 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