There has been a “War on Christmas” for thousands of years. Despite the name, it is not Christian. Whenever the Word of God is compared to Traditions of Man there is conflict. Whenever the House of Israel has been confronted by other nations, i.e. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, there has been conflict. Many of Israel have forsaken God’s Commandments against these pagan ways and followed them. On the other hand, many of Israel have lost their lives standing up for the Commandments of the God against these pagan nations and their traditions.
“A grapevine has been planted outside of the Father. But being unsound, it will be pulled up by its roots and destroyed.”
Jesus
The Roots of Wickedness Exposed
“As long as the root of wickedness is hidden, it is strong. But when it is recognized it is dissolved. When it is revealed it perishes. That is why the word says, “Already the ax is laid at the root of the trees” (Matthew 3:10). It will not merely cut– what is cut sprouts again–but the ax penetrates deeply until it brings up the root. Jesus pulled out the root of the whole place, while others did it only partially… Ignorance is the mother of all evil.”
Philip
“The love of money is the root of all evil: which while some covet after, they have erred from the faith/truth and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness…”
Paul – 1 Timothy 6:10
Jesus stood up to the workers of iniquity:
“Well has Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. Howbeit in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men… Full well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition.”
Jesus – Mark 7:6-9
“I will send to help you My servants Isaiah and Jeremiah, for whose counsel I have consecrated and prepared for you twelve trees loaded with different/diverse fruits,”
The Word of God – 2 Esdras 2:18
Jesus was quoting the prophet Isaiah. He quoted Isaiah and Ezra quite often.
“Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor Me, but have removed their heart far from Me, and their fear/reverence toward Me is taught by the precept of men…”
Isaiah 29:13-14
God spoke through the prophet Amos
“I hate, I despise your feast days… And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, …I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; …and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.”
Amos 5:21-27, 8:9-11
God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah
“Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them: Yet they have not hearkened unto Me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they have done worse than their fathers.
Therefore you shall speak all these words to them; but they will not hearken to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you. You shall say to them, ‘This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the Lord their God, nor receives correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’
Hear ye the word which the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and 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 cuts 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/so it won’t fall over.”
Jeremiah 7:25-28, 10:1-4
God spoke through Moses
“When you are in tribulation, and all these things are come upon you, even in the latter days, if you turn to the Lord your God, and shall be obedient to His voice; (For the Lord your God is a merciful God;) He will not forsake you, neither destroy you, nor forget the Covenant of your fathers which He swore unto them… And because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their seed after them, and brought you out in His sight with His mighty power out of Egypt;”
Deuteronomy 4:30-37
Tribulation in the Latter Days
“And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you and you shall call them to mind among all the nations, where the Lord your God has driven you, And shall return to the Lord your God, and shalt obey His voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul; Then the LORD your God will return you from your captivity and have compassion on you…
Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them. For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands. And Moses spoke in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song, until they were ended.”
Deuteronomy 30:1-3, 31:28-30
One important thing to remember is that there are those who say they are Christian but are not. A true Christian is a follower of Christ. Quite simply, Roman Catholicism and her daughters do not follow the teachings of Christ but the teachings of the popes.
The Puritan era
Here can be seen the Special Relationship between England and America. As brethren, they share a common history. Prior to the Victorian era, Christmas was primarily a religious holiday observed by ‘Christians’ of the Roman Catholic, Episcopal and Lutheran denominations. (Roman Catholicism is the ‘Mother’ of these Protestant denominations.) The importance of it is often considered secondary to that of Epiphany and Easter/Ishtar.
Puritans vs Old English Christmas Traditions
The Puritans, on the other hand, objected to the feast of Christmas. Puritans sought to remove elements they viewed as unbiblical, from their practice of Christianity, including those feasts established by the Anglican Church (also an offspring of Catholicism). In 1647, the Puritan-led English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas, replacing it with a day of fasting and considering it “a popish festival with no biblical justification”, and a time of wasteful and immoral behavior. Does this sound familiar to you? Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans. The book The Vindication of Christmas (London, 1652) argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with “plow-boys” and “maidservants”, old Father Christmas/Santa Claus and carol singing…
The Plymouth Pilgrims
In Colonial America, the Pilgrims of New England disapproved of Christmas. The Plymouth Pilgrims put their loathing for the day into practice in 1620 when they spent their first Christmas Day in the New World building their first structure in the New World—thus demonstrating their complete contempt for the day. Non-Puritans in New England deplored the loss of the holidays enjoyed by the laboring classes in England. Christmas observance was outlawed in Boston in 1659. The ban by the Puritans was revoked in 1681 by an English appointed governor, Edmund Andros; however, it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region. By the Declaration of Independence in 1776, it was not widely celebrated in the U.S.” Wikipedia
The Ways of the Adversary
How has the Roman Catholic church succeeded in causing the people to so wholeheartedly celebrate these holidays? They contradict God’s Word in the same way the serpent beguiled Eve in the Garden (Genesis 3:6).
“In this very way we exist in this world, like fish. The adversary spies on us, lying in wait for us like a fisherman, wishing to seize us, rejoicing that he might swallow us. For he places many foods before our eyes, (things) which belong to this world. He wishes to make us desire one of them and to taste only a little, so that he may seize us with his hidden poison and bring us out of freedom and take us into slavery. For whenever he catches us with a single food, it is indeed necessary for us to desire the rest. Finally, then, such things become the food of death.
Now these are the “foods” with which the devil lies in wait for us. First he injects a pain into your heart until you have heartache on account of a small thing of this life, and he seizes you with his poisons. And afterwards (he injects) the desire of a tunic so that you will pride yourself in it, and love of money, pride, vanity, envy that rivals another envy, beauty of body, fraudulence. The greatest of all these are ignorance and ease.”
Authoritative Teaching :15-16
Let us Walk in the Light of the LORD
“Come ye, and let us go up to the Mountain of the LORD, to the House of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths… Their land is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made… the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. And the idols He shall utterly abolish…
Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of? … O my people, they which lead you cause you to err and destroy the way of your paths.”
Isaiah 2:8, 17-18, 22, 3:12
Up on the Mountain of the LORD
“And I looked and , lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion/Zion, and with him an hundred and forty and four thousand, having his Father’s Name written in their foreheads… These are they who follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes… here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith/truth of Jesus.”
The Book of Revelation 14:1-5, 12