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 of 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 a 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 the 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 smothering 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 Claus lie, we can only cry with the Apostle John "I wondered with great wonder." '(Revelation 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?" (Jeremiah 5:30, 31).

PART TWO
The Origin of Christmas

    The celebration of Christmas is a mixture of pagan Babylon's "mystery" idolatry in its purest form, imported through Pergamos (Revelation 2:13) into Rome, and there incorporated into her pagan religious ritual, and from thence 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 December 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 to the most High God. For it is written in Isaiah:

(Isaiah 14:12-14)  "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! {13} 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: {14} I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High."

    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. This heathen celebration was in honor of the birth of Tammuz or Bel or Bacchus who was 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 (Daniel 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 (Revelation 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 its 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 a mother god and the birth of her child. In Egypt the mother and child were Isis and Osiris. In India they were Isi and lswara. 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 has been more or less departure from the original Babylonish form. Only in the Roman Catholic Church can we find today 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 fourth 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, 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 on the 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 wonders, 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 Revelation 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 thy self 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." (Exodus 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 Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ? And if, alas, too late, we awake suddenly to find the relentless judgments of God bearing mightily 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 Babylons" 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. Its 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 had been generally 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 Saviour 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 festivals 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 woolen fetters were taken from the feet of Saturn and each man offered a pig. During the festival schools were closed ...
        "Gambling and dice at other times illegal was now practiced. All classes exchanged gifts, the commonest being tapers and clay dolls. These dolls were especially given to children. Varro thought that these dolls represented original sacrifice of human beings to the Infernal God."
    7. The new Americanized Encyclopedia Brittanica, Edition of 1899, Vol. XI, page 404, has this:
        "Befferna. - A corruption of the word 'epiphania' (Epiphany) is 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 treasurers to the Infant Saviour, 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 Claus, 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 a procession through the streets is probably a relic of one of the 'Mysteries of the middle ages.'
    8. The new International Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition, Vol. 3, page 27, tell us:
        "Epiphany - A festival held on the 6th of January by 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 fourth 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 new 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. I, page 18, we find the following in formation 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 this word Christmas is an unholy and pagan combination of the two words "Christ" and "Mass." Christ died once for our sins (Hebrews 9:26). By that ONE offering He has perfected forever every believer (Hebrews 10:14).
    But behold the terrible mystery of 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 Saviour which He made at 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." (Isaiah 14:14)?
    Christ is the divine title of our wonderful Lord and Saviour. "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." (Revelation 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 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 - an evergreen tree symbolic to pagans of a god who cannot die! In Egypt this god was worshiped in a palm tree as Baal Tamar. The fir tree was worshiped 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 worshiped as God he was also reverenced by the name of Baal.
    Thus we can see how, in the annual custom of erecting and decorating ever green 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 a Christmas tree, they are actually even if unwittingly commemorating a pagan festival in honor of Baal, which thing our God hates. (I Kings 18; Judges 8:33).

(Jeremiah 10:3-5)  "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. {4} They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. {5} They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good."

    3. The date of the birth of Christ. There is not one Scripture in the Word of God which indicates that December 25th is the anniversary of the day on which Christ was born. Neither do we find in that Word anything to prove what time of the year He was born. There is not a verse in the Bible in which can be found the word "Christmas." No one knows the date of the birth of Jesus. Those archeologists and historians who can be depended upon and whose honesty never was doubted, and who are unbiased in their conclusions all agree that the birth of Jesus could not possibly have been in December. There is no reason to connect His birth with December 25th, except for the purpose of using His name to hide the commemoration of a pagan festival as the Church of Rome has so successfully done.
    God in His wisdom has chosen to hide the time of His Beloved Son's incarnation. The Bible is the inspired Word of the same Holy God who inhabits Eternity. His dear Son is the central figure in that Word from Genesis to Revelation. He has revealed to us many wondrous things about His Son Jesus Christ. But one thing He has completely hidden from man. It is the precise date of His birth.
    Nowhere in the Word of God are we told to remember the birth of Jesus Christ. Christians are commanded to remember His death, both by the Lord Himself in Luke 22:18-19 and by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 11:23-26. Surely the heart of man must be far from right with God when it can enjoy itself greatly in doing exactly the opposite of His command. Yet many who pass before the world as Christians gladly join the hilarious ungodly in celebrating the pagan festival of Christmas. Another thing I have noticed, those who make the most of Christmas day are those who care the least about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the day on which Christ told us to remember His death, the first day of the week - the Lord's Day. People who very willingly desecrate the Lord's Day with all manner of pleasure seeking, all sorts of open business places, every kind of secular work, will forfeit all these with great zeal to attend some Christmas service or program in a Church or some other place. Then back they go to their ungodly polluting of the Lord's Day until the next Christmas, when with a conscience aroused by festival emotion they rush again to the altars of the Roman goddess from Babylon.
    But who that has been taught by God's Spirit can go in for these pagan celebrations? Christian, can you take part in the idolatries of Babylon? How can you who have been bought with His own blood, offer false worship to a pagan god introduced among us by Satan's Anti-Christ? Can you like Judas, betray Christ by joining hands with them who hate Him and blaspheme His atonement, yet falsely pretend to honor His birth in a festival of sin? Can you, too, enjoy the Romish pageantry in your church and help crucify Jesus afresh by putting Him to an open shame in the idolatrous mockery of Christmas?

"If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (I John 2:15)

"Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues." (Revelation 18:4)

    4. The giving of gifts. In Bible accounts where celebrating and gift giving were done at someone's birthday party, sin and evil prevailed and murder followed. In Genesis, on Pharaoh's birthday, the chief baker was hanged and beheaded. During Herod's birthday celebration John the Baptist was beheaded for preaching against sin. In Revelation 11 we read how wicked people celebrated the slaying of God's two faithful witnesses by making merry and sending gifts to one another. The Holy Spirit by the mouth of Paul once said, "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you. lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain." (Galatians 4:10-11)
    I believe that gifts can be great blessings. But a gift is of no value whatever unless it is given in love. Today the common custom seems to be to give a gift at Christmas as a part of a bargain to receive one.
    Those who give only at a time of a celebration of idolatry certainly are only doing so to the abhorrence of the Almighty. How much more then are they mocking God and making themselves abominable to Him, who send gifts to one another at such a time in a pretense of honoring the birth of His Son? And what account shall those Christians give to our God in the day of judgment, who have annually spent hundreds and even thousands of dollars upon Christmas presents out of their abundance and yet have given little or nothing to support gospel work in our land or in the needy mission fields?
    The godly wise men from the East gave their gifts to the child Jesus Himself - not to one another or to their friends. They gave to Him from hearts moved by the Holy Spirit. Their gifts were a part of their worship of the new found Messiah. Neither were their gifts common trinkets but presents of great value showing their heart's true love for their Lord. They did not bring to the Christ child presents that they might receive from Him something in return. O how far removed from those first gifts to the child Jesus is the modern cheap knick-knack giving of the fickle throng of Christmas revelers who annually submit themselves to all the festive responsibilities of gift purchasing, which is only a burden grievous to be borne!
    5. The world and Christmas. Here is one thing which, if it were the only thing, would prove to me that Christmas celebrating is not of God. It is this; the world which hates Christ and His blood atonement for sin, respond as one man at that time to revel and feast and celebrate.
    If in reality December 25th was a date set by God to remember the birth of Jesus, the world would not have anything to do with it. There would be absolutely no response by the rank and file of mankind. Witness how the world does not regard the Lord's Day which is of God. But the world DOES regard and love Christmas, therefore it is not of God. "For the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." (I Corinthians 2:14) Then how can an obedient child of God, or a church or a gathering of Christians, follow Papal Rome and the drugged and reeling world in their abominable idolatry and sin of Christ-mass festivities?
    Those who despise the Gospel of God's grace will go to any length to celebrate a false tradition about His Son's birth. Those who hate the doctrine of forgiveness through the blood of Jesus alone, are filled with great zeal to promote programs, to play Santa Claus, to adorn their dwellings with wreaths and trees and say "Merry Christmas" to everyone they meet. Proud sinners, self-righteous sinners, immoral sinners with a character black as midnight, morally virtuous sinners with hard impenitent hearts, refined and well educated sinners seeming to know everything but Christ as Saviour, religious sinners with a lofty heady profession - all, all with one accord join hands in the gay hilarity of Christmas following the old Mother Harlot, ignorantly imagining they are doing honor to a Saviour they neither love nor know nor care to know.
    During Christmastide men and women become foully drunk on "Christmas present" liquor and perpetuate every kind of social vice, and criminal debauchery. In wild "Christmas parties" young men and women willingly sell their bodies to evil and their souls to Hell around the be-ribboned and wreathed "Christmas gifts" of champagne, brandy, wine and beer. And thousands of others who would not get drunk commit the abominable sin of gluttony like some gorging carnivorous animal. And in these the name of Christ is used in vile cursing, vulgarity and blasphemy by men and women, boys and girls who lie deliberately about "St. Nick" and "Santa Claus" and love a "Merry Christmas." Dear Christian, can you help to betray Christ with these pagans, by going with them in their religious riots? Can you sell Christ to the ungodly world for a pagan Christmas like Judas did for his 30 pieces of silver?
    6. Christmas Programs and Literature. Please read Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 2, then Luke, Chapter 2. By doing so with care any thoughtful reader can see at once that Christmas songs, books, cards and programs are not Scriptural. For in most of these we find in one way or another, misrepresentations about the shepherds, the wise men, the star, the child, the stable, etc.
    Let us begin to solve this problem by stating that nowhere in God's Word are we informed how many wise men there were. Neither does Scripture state that they followed a star to Jerusalem. Most certainly they knew the way there. Being wise men they knew how the Prophets foretold that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. When they came to Herod to learn the whereabouts of the newborn Christ, it was sometime after His birth. No one in Jerusalem seemed to know where the Child was. So the same star they had seen before at the time of His birth, now appeared and led them to where the Child was. When the wise men found the Lord Jesus He was no longer a tiny babe but a child living in Nazareth. Joseph and Mary had already returned from taking Him up to Jerusalem, which took place when Jesus was 4l days old (Leviticus 12:1-4). Therefore the wise men never saw the Saviour until He had been brought back to Nazareth from the temple in Jerusalem (Luke 2:39). They could not possibly have seen Him before, because immediately after their departure, when they had seen the Saviour, Joseph and Mary fled into Egypt with Him and remained there till Herod was dead (Matthew 2:14-15).
    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 that 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 inn, manger and house are misrepresented. The visit of the shepherds and the visit of 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 FOR 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 this 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 of 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" (Isaiah 9:17).

"Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." (Proverbs 14:34)

"Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil." (Exodus 23:2)

    8. Perhaps some well-meaning but untaught Christian 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 your 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 Claus and his reindeer? You should read Revelation 21:27.

(Revelation 21:27)  "And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life."

    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 the brazen boldness to tell your children you are a Christian, and then connect pagan idolatry to the story of 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 Claus - 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 Saviour 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 worshipers 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 Claus 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." (Matthew 7:20)

"Train up a young child in the way he should go: when he is old, he will not de part from it." (Proverbs 22:6)

PART FIVE
Conclusions for Your Meditation

    It may be you have 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 suggest to you what should be done if this is the sad case with you.
    Do not spend what God has given you on temporal gifts. Do not contribute to the "good cause" of supporting a Romish Christmas entertainment in your church. Do not buy an expensive tree with its ornaments and decorations, like the Christ- hating world does. Dare to leave them all behind for Christ's sake.
    Instead of all this, take what God has given you and send it as a gift to the Lord to some needy missionary in a dark and foreign land. Think awhile on those poor of the earth, those millions of souls who have never heard the glad tidings of Christ for the lack of support of real Christian missionaries. Can you use what the good Lord has given you to celebrate like the idolatrous heathen, instead of giving in order that those same poor heathen in awful darkness might hear the Gospel and be saved?

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matthew 25:40)

    I have no desire to discourage one honest soul. But I have witnessed this Christmas festival of sin creeping as a deadly thing, coiling its slimy and glittering idolatries slowly and surely around the feeble Church of God as a part of Rome's program to strangle the true worship that remains. And I have found most of those who know Christ as Lord and Saviour totally unaware of the truth about Christmas. And few are the voices raised in protest of this paganism, for the honor of Jesus Christ our only Lord and Saviour.
    Therefore I have revealed to you the truth as God has shown it to me by His Word and by history and existing facts. May He make it a word in season to you. It is my hope and prayer that every Christian who discovers he has erred so exceedingly as to partake of Rome's Christmas, will turn again to the God of all grace and in contrition, utterly and forever forsake all that pertains to this Christ dishonoring sin of Babylon. It is my desire to see, not only the souls of men saved, but the children of God walking in obedience to Him. The Apostle John said, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." (III John 1:4)
    Christians are commanded to be holy (I Peter 1:15-16). They are to be living sacrifices (Romans 12:1). They are to utterly forsake idolatry (Exodus 20:5). They are told to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the fleshy desires (Galatians 5:16). They are told to stand fast in the liberty of Christ (Galatians 5:1). They are commanded to grieve not the Spirit of God (Ephesians 4:30). The Apostle said we believers ought to walk as Jesus walked (I John 2:6). Christ Himself said we should he perfect as our Heavenly Father is (Matthew 5:48). Jesus told us to set our affections on things above where He is (Colossians 3:2). In Christ we are new creations (II Corinthians 5:17). By His grace we have come from the hole of the pit (Isaiah 51:1) to Mount Zion, the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, into the Church of the Firstborn whose names are written in Heaven (Hebrews 12:22-23). By God's Grace we have been brought from the terrible darkness of death (Ephesians 2:1) to the light of life (John 14:6; John 8:12). We have been saved from eternal death by the blood of His dear Son (Romans 5:9). We have been bought with a price most precious (I Peter 1:19). We are not our own any more but His (I Corinthians 6:20), and now in Christ we are temples of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 3: 16).
    Reader, do you now see why faithful John said "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." (I John 5:21)?
    And can you pastors see now why you should faithfully warn your flocks against the idolatries of the Mother of abominations?
    Can you not see what terrible hypocrisy it is to hold out the Word of God in one hand to the souls of men, and welcome the heathen Christmas customs of Rome into your midst with the other?
    You who would not think of honoring Rome's "Lady Fatima," are you annually welcoming Rome's Christ-mass Into your own church?
    And you pastors to whom has 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 your pulpit between God and you 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 watchman, can you not see that God will require this nation's blood of your hand if you refuse to heed the hand writing on the wall, and if you allow Babylon's idolatrous pageantry and revelry to prosper in the Church of God for whom Christ died?