Grinchiness

Yay, insomnia again.

Unpopular opinion:

Jesus is not the reason for the season.

I was trolling around the Church of Satan's FAQ holiday page, and they claim that Christians stole the holiday from pagans. Quoted from the webpage: "So for the Yule holiday season, we enjoy the richness of life and the company of people whom we cherish, as we will often be the only ones who know where the traditions really came from!"

I don't expect the Church of Satan to tell the truth, but they're right about this one.

I think the most Christ-honoring thing we could do for Christmas is abandon it.

Without doing too much research, you can easily find the origins of the holiday center around the Roman Empire celebrating the winter solstice and "rebirth" of the sun/sun god. This holiday is a perfect example of syncretism, where pagan customs were "Christianized" and adopted by the early church and the birth date of our savior was assigned to the sun god's so we could all party together.

Wonderful.

There are other darker connections going way back to Nimrod, but I don't think I need to go there to make the point that celebrating Christmas is worshiping God in the way of the nations, which is a big no-no.

Deut 12:30-31a Take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods saying, "How did these nations serve their gods?- that I may also do the same." You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way.

Christians, everywhere: "But that's not what it means to meeeeeeeeeee."

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that the worship of the Most High was dependent on your feelings. 

And here we have another Exodus 32 golden calf situation: perhaps your heart intends to worship rightly, but your actions are instead aligned with what the world is doing and traditions rooted in fertility rites.

Do you think the God of the Bible is pleased with us celebrating a commercialized, self-indulgent holiday and putting a Jesus sticker on it? 

Or telling the nations to "Put Christ back in Christmas" where he never was to begin with?

Or even worse- abandoning the Biblical feasts and choosing to celebrate pagan ones instead?

Furthermore, it's idolatry.

Christians, everywhere: "My heart is in the right place for this holiday because I set up a nativity scene."

Well, first of all, the human heart is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked (Jer 17:9), so jot that down.

Secondly, do you believe that God meant what he said in Exodus 20:4 about not making a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above?

Then WHY celebrate a pagan festival with carved images of baby Jesus and angels!?!?!?!?!

I realize nativity scenes try their best to purport what happened at his birth in order to remember the story, but do you really want to venerate your Savior as a vulnerable, helpless baby?

The danger of images or visual representations of Elohim is that they limit our view of God. 

You may not be falling down and worshipping the image, but it subconsciously forces you to only see the humanity of Christ and not the fullness and trueness of his being.

I know I've upset a lot of apple carts here.

A LOT of apple carts.

So let's say you get rid of all the tree phallus and fertility decor, idolatrous nativity images, and whatever other Santa crap you may have laying around, but you still want to celebrate Jesus' birthday.

Then maybe do it at the right time? Like, around when he was actually born?

5 Simple Steps to Prove Yeshua was not born December 25th:

1. Luke 1:5 - Zechariah was in the priestly division of Abijah.

2. 1 Chron 24:10 - the 8th lot fell to Abijah, meaning that the Abijah priests would serve in the temple in the 8th week of the Hebrew year. Hebrew year starts in March/April, so 8 weeks after that puts us around June when Zechariah got the news that he and Elizabeth would bear a son. 

3. Luke 1:24 - Elizabeth conceives and keeps this hidden for 5 months, so now we're probably at November.

4. Luke 1:26 - In the sixth month, Gabriel tells Mary she will conceive. So now we're in December, probably around Hanukkah. (What!?!? The light of the world conceived during the festival of lights? No way!)

5. Normal 40 week pregnancy puts the birth date at the beginning of October, probably coinciding with the Feast of Tabernacles. What a cool time for our Messiah to come and dwell, i.e. tabernacle, among us!

See, aren't the Biblical feasts much better than the stupid pagan ones?

Other fun facts:

1. There was probably no room in the inn (Luke 2:7) because Bethlehem was a suburb of Jerusalem where everyone gathered for the pilgrimage festival of Sukkot (tabernacles). It's very possible that he was born in a sukkah, the temporary shelter set up for the feast.

2. Shepherds kept their flocks in the field from Passover (Mar/Apr) to the first rain (Oct/Nov) and were not out tending their flocks in the dead of winter (Luke 2:8).

3. Wise men came years later and worshiped him at their house (Matt 2:11), not at the manger scene.

I would contend that we are not told exactly when he was born because our focus should not be on his birth but rather his life.

Let's move on from Jesus being a baby and learn to walk in the way that he did.

Move on from the "peace on earth" shtick and realize that Yeshua said he did not come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword (Matt 10:34). 

I know that nostalgia is one of the strongest ties to this holiday that is hard to break.

Just last year, I was setting up my tree and bowing down to put gifts under it like the rest of mystery Babylon, simply yet painfully unaware that anything I was doing might be an affront to my Creator.

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

I'm not here to judge you for not knowing. 

I'm here to tell true stories.

As for me, finding out the truth about these things caused me to lose all joy in them.

And when you repent and lose all joy of the worldly things - PRAISE GOD BECAUSE THEN YOU ARE FREE.

We have got to be wise as serpents, guys. 

We have to know what Satan is up to so that we can defend against it and not be deceived. When the church of Satan knows something the majority of Christians refuse to acknowledge, we have a BIG problem. 

Even bigger than my potential big turkey problems. 

And what really gets to me is when churches decorate their sanctuaries for Christmas, which is an oxymoron because the word "sanctuary" means holy & set apart (Latin: sanctus).

HOW are Christians being set apart from the world when we look and act just like it?

Anyway, if you disagree with me, fine, but if you made it this far, you no longer have plausible deniability. The world loves to live like it won't have to give an account to God (Rom 14:12), but I would encourage you to look at your heart and then at your actions, SEEK TRUTH, and then make darn sure you're without excuse.

Then make your repentant butt perpendicular to hut and walk right out of Babylon.

TWS