SunEasXmasCh3

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SUNDAY, EASTER & CHRISTMAS WILL BE OUR UNDOING

CHAPTER 3

PAGAN CHRISTMAS

The primary role of God’s Church is to be a watchman to the House of Israel [primarily America and the British Commonwealth nations] as described by Ezekiel the prophet in Ezekiel 3:17-19: “17 Son of man, I have made you a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore, hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. 18 When I say unto the wicked, you shall surely die; and you give him not warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand. 19 Yet if you warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.”

This is a heavy responsibility for us in God’s Church, with our eternal life at stake. And what are the sins or iniquities God is talking about? Primarily violations of His Ten Commandments; worshipping pagan gods in pagan festivals such as Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentine’s Day and New Year’s; disobeying God by not keeping the annual holy days He has commanded to be kept as mentioned in Leviticus 23; eating unclean food such as pork, shellfish, rabbits and unclean birds. We lead the world in sexual perversions and parade them around the world and even try to coerce other nations to allow their people to participate in them.

Christmas is the biggest holiday of the Christian world, celebrated each year on December 25th, the supposed birthday of Jesus Christ the Savior of the World. On this day, preachers in mainstream Christianity’s churches will pound the pulpits exhorting their members to “put Christ back in Christmas;” sing carols in Church services; have meals with pork and ham, an unclean meat the consumption of which is prohibited in the Bible; tell their children the lie that Santa Claus brought them gifts and put them under a decorated tree, a practice also thoroughly ridiculed and condemned in the Bible.

Most people who have not read their entire Bible will be shocked to learn that the word Christmas is not even mentioned in the Bible, let alone commanded to be celebrated.

The truth of the matter is that on Christmas the world does not celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ, the real savior of the world. Jesus was not born on or around December 25th which we will prove shortly. On 25th of December every year, mainstream Christianity and the world worships a counterfeit Jesus [the word Jesus means savior], a false savior. Can you imagine how the Real Jesus and His Father feel about our people, whom they have abundantly blessed for the past more than 220 years because of His unconditional promise to Abraham. All this time we have not been honoring them but instead have been honoring pagan gods who originally opposed the true God. You will hear that story shortly.

The world has been taught that there is only one Jesus Christ. But the Bible speaks of a counterfeit Jesus who can be identified in history. The apostle Paul warned of “another Jesus” in 2 Corinthians 11:3-4: “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent [Satan] beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that comes preaches another Jesus [Did you notice? Paul mentions another Jesus”], whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him.”

Let’s look into history and identify this “other Jesus or savior.”

First consider what Origen, an early Catholic writer, admitted about the celebration of birthdays, “…In the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his birthday. It is only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod) who make great rejoicings over the day in which they were born into this world.”

So, in the Bible God’s people don’t celebrate birthdays but observe the day of death, such as the Passover commemorating the day of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and death. King Solomon declared in Ecclesiastes 7:1: “A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth.”

That should give the true Christian a clue that Christmas cannot be of God. It celebrates a birthday rather than the day of death. So, in celebrating Christmas, Christians are not obeying God’s command but observing their own tradition.

This raises an important question: Since Christmas is not a commandment of God, can we then be honoring Christ by keeping Christmas? Happily, Jesus Himself provided us His unequivocal answer, without leaving an iota of doubt about the issue. He said in Matthew 15:9: “But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Clearly by keeping a pagan custom, which is not even mentioned in the Bible, Christ cannot be honored.

Mark 7:9 states: “Full well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition,” confirming that Jesus Christ is honored by keeping God’s commandments rather than choosing our own ways and traditions to worship Him. Such worship is in vain. We should keep the holy days He has commanded in the Bible and worship Him as He has commanded us to worship him rather than choosing our own days and traditions to worship Him.

It really boils down to whether you want to obey what Jesus commands you to do in the Bible or you want to do your own thing, and what pleases you. You can use any arguments you want to deceive yourself and justify keeping your own traditions. But in so doing, you are being self-willed rather than doing the will of God.

WAS JESUS BORN ON DECEMBER 25TH?

Read any good encyclopedia such as the Encyclopedia Britannica, or the Encyclopedia Americana and you can easily learn that Christmas is of pagan origin. I REPEAT, RESEARCH INTO THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTMAS AND NOT WHAT IT MEANS. You will find that its origins have nothing to do with Christ or His worship as He taught it to His disciples. Don’t believe what your pastor says about Christmas, do your own research and you will learn the truth about this pagan festival.

Regarding Christmas, one of the most important questions to ask is whether Jesus Christ was born anywhere near December 25th. Bible gives us three indications about the time Jesus Christ was born.

First, we know that shepherds were in the fields watching their flocks at the time of Jesus' birth as stated in Luke 2:7-8. Shepherds are not in the fields during December around Jerusalem because it is cold and rainy in Judea at that time, and the shepherds would have sought shelter for their flocks at night.

Second, Jesus' parents came to Bethlehem to register in a Roman census (Luke 2:1-4). Such censuses were not taken in winter when temperatures often dropped below freezing and roads were in poor condition. Taking a census under such conditions would have been self-defeating.

Third, the Bible does indicate that Jesus was most likely born in autumn of the year, based on the conception and birth of John the Baptist. Since Elizabeth (John's mother) was in her sixth month of pregnancy when Jesus was conceived, as Luke 1:24-36 states, we can determine the approximate time of year Jesus was born if we know when John was born.

John's father, Zacharias, was a priest serving in the Temple at Jerusalem during the course of Abijah, as stated in Luke 1:5. Historical calculations indicate this course of service corresponded to around June 13-19 in that year (The Companion Bible, 1974, Appendix 179, p. 200).

As described in Luke 1:8-13, it was during this time of temple service that Zacharias learned from the angel that his wife, Elizabeth, would have a child. After he completed his service and went home, Elizabeth conceived (verses 23-24). Assuming John's conception took place near the end of June, adding nine months brings us to the end of March as the most likely time for John's birth. Adding another six months (the difference in ages between John and Jesus) brings us to the end of September as the likely time of Jesus' birth.

Since we now know that December 25th was nowhere near Christ’s actual birth date, where did the festival associated with this date come from?

The Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th Edition, Vol. II, p. 903 (under ‘Christmas’) states: “In the Roman world, the Saturnalia (December 17) was a time of merrymaking and exchanging of gifts. December 25 was also regarded as the birthdate of the Iranian mystery god Mithra, the Sun of Righteousness. On the Roman New Year (January 1), houses were decorated with greenery and lights, and gifts were given to children and the poor. To these observances were added the German and Celtic Yule rites when the Teutonic tribes penetrated into Gaul, Britain and central Europe. Food and good fellowship, the Yule log and Yule cakes, greenery and fir trees, gifts and greetings all commemorated different aspects of this festive season. Fires and lights, symbols of warmth and lasting life, have always been associated with the winter festival, both pagan and Christian.”

So, December 25th was not selected as the date for Christmas because it was the birth of Christ or because it was even near it. It was selected because it coincided with the idolatrous pagan festival Saturnalia.

Even the Catholic Encyclopedia admits that Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church…

Jesus never celebrated His birthday; the apostles never celebrated Jesus’ birthday. In fact, the first evidence of Christmas being celebrated as the birthday of Jesus Christ comes 300 years after the death of Jesus Christ. Even the Catholic Church admits that “Pagan customs centering around the January calends gravitated to Christmas.”

You will notice that I have quoted from the 15th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which was released in 1974, and the 1911 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia. The reason is that after God’s Church through Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, through whom God founded the modern era, started preaching against Christmas, Easter and other pagan practices of mainstream Christianity, quoting from these reputable authorities, when these publications still put out the truth about religion, then German masqueraders [people of German ancestry living in white countries] who had infiltrated as editors of these publications began to change what had been written about these practices and their origins so as to obscure the truth. But that truth is still available for those who diligently seek it and want to reject lies.

ANOTHER JESUS

The Saturnalia, of course, celebrated Saturn—the Sun-fire god. Saturn was also the Roman god of sowing and agriculture. The planet Saturn was later named after him because with its rings and red color, it best represented the god of fire!

But who was the Saturn that was celebrated in the Saturnalia? The original Saturn of the Romans and Kronos of the Greeks was Cain, the son of Adam and Eve, who murdered his righteous brother Abel. He was deified by the pagans as the god of sowing because in the Bible account he raised crops while his brother Abel was a shepherd. But after Noah’s Flood many of the deified names of the pre-Flood great men were assumed by the pagan great men. The name Saturn was assumed by Nimrod. The Babylonian priest historian Berossus when referring to Nimrod as the ruler of Babylon calls him “our Saturn.”

WHO WAS NIMROD?

But who was Nimrod, and how did he come to be worshipped as the savior? The Bible explains who Nimrod was. He was born about 81 – 82 years after the Flood and is mentioned in Genesis 10:7-8. He was the son of Cush [which means black] the son of Ham in an illegal relationship with Semiramis [who was racially white]. They were not married.

The Bible describes Nimrod in Genesis 10:8-10: “8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. 10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.”

Using ancient sources, I have traced the history of the world for four centuries after Noah’s Flood in the 2nd volume of my book “Satan vs. God: From the Flood to Abraham’s Call” in which the activities of Nimrod and his mother Semiramis are described in detail. Here briefly is why Nimrod was worshipped as a savior more than 2,000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ.

The three verses describing Nimrod in the Bible are packed with meaning. Some of the details about Nimrod’s activities are provided by the Jewish historian Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews.

The African-featured Cush was about 80 years old, married with children, when he had an illegal relationship with Semiramis, a strikingly beautiful 20–21-year-old young white girl. Nimrod was born of that relationship who grew up into a mighty powerful young black man, possibly a tall giant. Then the Bible describes him as a mighty hunter. He was not a mighty hunter of deer or such animals and birds for food, but a mighty hunter of ferocious wild beasts like lions, leopards and hyenas.

Before the Flood, animals were not ferocious. When Adam and Eve were created all the animals were tame. But then Cain’s descendants, who refused to keep domestic animals in rebellion against God (because his offering of grains and vegetables was rejected by God while that of his righteous brother’s sacrifice of the best of his sheep was accepted), as his righteous brother Abel had done, had to hunt wild unclean animals for food. These animals included elephants, mammoths, hyenas, bears, saber tooth tigers and lions among others. The reason was that they had primitive stone weapons and the undomesticated clean animals such as deer, goats and sheep were too swift for them. Archaeology has provided us proof of this.

After the Flood, for the protection of animals from man [not for protection of man from the animals, but for the protection of animals from man], God allowed the animals to develop a ferocious nature under Satan’s influence and to even attack and kill man. Soon after the Flood, animals multiplied much faster than human beings as they mature quickly into adulthood and produce young much faster. Wild ferocious beasts such as lions, tigers, hyenas, bears, wolves and others began to attack human beings and became a threat to humanity’s survival. At this time Nimrod stepped in to protect mankind from the wild beasts. He became a mighty hunter who organized hunting parties to hunt them and succeeded in driving them away from human habitations into the wild. As a result, many in the still growing tiny human family with the entire world population being only around 2,500 began to regard Nimrod as the savior of mankind. They believed that Nimrod with his might and courage had saved mankind from being completely destroyed. Such incredible fame for a mere twenty something young man went to Nimrod’s head. That made him an easy target for being influenced by Satan.

Then God gave Noah a colonization plan to spread the small but growing human family over all the earth. The plan would separate the races because before the Flood, racial mixing had been a major cause of evil and violence in the world. Noah began sending out colonies. But Cush, Nimrod and Semiramis led a rebellion against God’s plan of colonization. They wanted to mix the races because Cush and Nimrod were black whereas Semiramis was white. Since they were rebelling against God, they set up their own worship system opposed to the worship of the true God, setting up their own god, the Sun-Fire-Serpent god.

Noah had been teaching his grandchildren and great grandchildren that God is the provider who provides mankind with food. But Satan led the rebels to believe that the Sun was the source of warmth that caused food to grow. And the Sun was also the source of light. So, they began worshipping the sun. They also knew that the serpent, or Satan, in the Garden of Eden was the one who gave man spiritual knowledge opposite to that of God. They reasoned that the Sun god was the physical enlightener of the world, and the serpent was the spiritual enlightener of the world. So, they set up a Sun-serpent god opposed to the true God and began worshipping the god they had created. Then they reasoned that the fire was the great physical and spiritual cleanser, and representation of the sun, and their god became the Sun-fire-serpent god.

It is worth mentioning that wild animals appear to have been a problem where the rebels went, and not with those who remained loyal to Noah.

Then Genesis 10:10 tells us further about Nimrod’s activities: “10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” Thus, instead of going out in colonies as God had commanded man for his own good through Noah, Nimrod, Cush and the other rebels with them started building a kingdom. Nimrod built various cities – Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh - as part of his kingdom. Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the greatest rebel against God after the Flood. The name Nimrod is derived from the Hebrew word maraud which means “he rebelled.” He actually tried to replace God as the ruler of mankind.

As part of their rebellion against God, Nimrod, Cush and the rebels began building a great shrine to worship the Sun-Fire-Serpent god they had set up, and a city as a shining symbol of the glory of their kingdom. That symbol and shrine was the great tower they built, and the city they were building was Babylon.

The famous Jewish historian, Josephus, records in Antiquities of the Jews important evidence of Nimrod’s role in the post-flood world. He states: “He also gradually changed the government into tyranny…He [Nimrod] also said he would be revenged on God, if He should have a mind to drown the world again [in a flood]; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach…Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God” (Bk. I, Ch. IV, sec. 2, 3). So, Nimrod was not saving the world from its sins, but was in their reasoning saving the world from the true God if he tried to drown the world in another flood. He had earlier saved humanity from destruction by wild animals.

Nimrod and his father Cush became the high priests of the god they had set up. Soon afterwards Nimrod, heavily influenced by Satan, started the practice of child sacrifice. Alexander Hislop in his book The Two Babylons, states on page 231:

“Now, this is in exact accordance with the character of the Great Head of the system of fire-worship. Nimrod, as the representative of the devouring fire to which human victims, and especially children, were offered in sacrifice, was regarded as the great child-devourer…he was, of course, the actual father of all the Babylonian gods; and, therefore, in that character he was afterwards universally regarded. As the Father of the gods, he was, as we have seen, called Kronos; and everyone knows that the classical story of Kronos was just this, that, ‘he devoured his sons as soon as they were born.’ (Lempriere Classical Dictionary, ‘Saturn’)…This legend has a further and deeper meaning; but, as applied to Nimrod, or ‘The Horned One,’ it just refers to the fact, that, as the representative of Moloch or Baal, infants were the most acceptable offerings at his altar. We have ample and melancholy evidence on this subject from the records of antiquity. ‘The Phoenicians,’ says Eusebius, ‘every year sacrificed their beloved and only-begotten children to Kronos or Saturn.’”

But why was human sacrifice such a key to the worship of this terrible god? What possible good could human beings think they saw in burning their own children in the fire? Hyslop continues: “…he who approached the fire would receive a light from divinity” and “through divine fire all the stains produced by generations could be purged away.”

As incredible as it seems, human beings deceived by Nimrod actually believed they were purifying themselves and their sacrificed children from the original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

There is no evidence that human sacrifice or child sacrifice was practiced before the Flood. Nimrod thus appears to have been the first to introduce these evil practices. That is the savior of the world who is worshipped in Christmas as I will soon show.

This was one of the practices for which ancient Israel and Judah were carried away as captive slaves, and such practices were condemned by God through the prophets. Jeremiah records his warning in 32:27-36: “34…they set their abominations in the house which is called by My name [meaning the Temple in Jerusalem], to defile it. 35 And they built the high places of Baal [pagan name for the deified Nimrod] which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech [another pagan name for Nimrod], [meaning burning their children alive in the fire] which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.' 36 "Now therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, 'It shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence:”

For these wicked practices and his many other crimes, most probably God ordered through Noah that Nimrod should be executed. This was the very first execution of an individual commanded by God in the history of mankind. Noah’s son Shem went to Egypt, and being a very eloquent man, convinced 70 princes in Egypt to join him in the cause of bringing Nimrod to justice. When Nimrod heard about it, he wasted no time and attacked Shem and the people with him. Nimrod’s forces were defeated, and he fled to Italy. Shem pursued him there and slew him. His body was cut into pieces and sent into various parts of the inhabited earth as a warning to those who would continue to worship the Sun-fire-serpent god and the horrible practices of live human and child sacrifices associated with his worship.

CHRISTMAS ORIGINS PRE-DATE JESUS BY 2000 YEARS

Though Nimrod was dead, he was not forgotten. After all, he had saved mankind from wild animals, or at least those that had rebelled against Noah with him. When the news of Nimrod’s execution spread all over, there was great mourning for him. Women among all the pagans who had followed his religion and regarded him as the savior of mankind everywhere wept bitterly and mourned for him. The pagans did not see his requiring child sacrifices as wickedness. They were deceived into believing that it was spiritual cleansing for the souls of the children and their families.

After Nimrod was slain by Shem, the people could no longer openly worship the Sun-fire-serpent god. They feared being executed by Shem like Nimrod had been. But to continue worshipping the god they had created, the people had to do it in secret. To do so, Nimrod’s mother Semiramis developed what came to be known as the Mysteries, or the Babylonian Mysteries, because she lived in Babylon for a long time.

In these mysteries, the people worshipped symbols such as the disk with a serpent wrapped around it, to represent the Sun-fire-serpent god. But just around that time it seems Satan understood the prophecy God had given to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15 after they had eaten the forbidden fruit. The prophecy states: “15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel" (Genesis 3:15).

This prophecy was about a woman’s son who would come and bruise Satan’s head, and Satan would bruise His heel. This prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, as the Son of a woman, but not born of a man.

When Satan understood this prophecy at the time of slaying of Nimrod, he led Semiramis to counterfeit the teaching of this prophecy. He led her to claim that she was the woman of this prophecy, and Nimrod her son was the promised Savior who would make eternal life possible for humanity. Semiramis then deified Nimrod as the promised savior and herself as the mother. That is how Mother, or Madonna and Child worship originated. The world, therefore, was worshipping a Mother and Child more than 2000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. It was easy for the Catholic Church to transfer this pagan practice to Christianity by calling it the worship of Jesus and Mary.

Semiramis then developed a whole worship system, deifying her slain son Nimrod as the Son, and herself as the Mother of the prophecy in Genesis 3:15. But Shem was still alive and very much active at this time. Therefore, the worshippers of Nimrod and Semiramis could not practice their pagan religion openly, for fear of being executed. Instead, the people began to worship them with symbols. For example, Semiramis was represented by a tree. In order to worship Semiramis, they worshipped a tree. Those initiated into these mysteries knew that they were worshipping Semiramis when they were worshipping a tree. But those not initiated into the mysteries were not told what they were worshipping when they were worshipping a tree. Nimrod was represented by the Sun. Fire was also worshipped as the earthly representation of the sun. And Satan was worshipped as the serpent. Thus, the original worship of the Sun-fire-serpent god was fused with the worship of Nimrod and Semiramis.

By the time Semiramis died, she had added many rituals, practices, days of celebrations to her worship system. Sun worship took place around December 25th. Thus, many of the customs we associate with Christmas were already being practiced more than 2100 years before the birth of Jesus Christ and were widespread throughout the earth. Rome was already a major center of these practices by the time of Jesus Christ.

The reason Rome was a major center of these worship practices was that after the Babylonian Empire was destroyed by the Medes and Persians, many of the Babylonians including the priests migrated to Italy. All the Babylonian priests just continued their Babylonian Mystery religion in Rome in Italy. Even well before that, just after Noah died, the group of Chaldean and Babylonian priests who had migrated to Italy soon after Noah’s death 350 years after the Flood had quietly replaced the worship system that Noah taught the Italians with Semiramis’ Babylonian Mystery religion.

Under many names, mankind’s earliest and greatest rebel Nimrod has been worshipped throughout false religion. Ancient Israel kept falling into serving the many false gods that Nimrod represented, such as the Roman Saturn, Babylonian Tammuz, and under other names such as Moloch and Baal.

Ezekiel 8:13-14 records a picture of the women of Israel “weeping for Tammuz.” This Tammuz (the god of fire) was considered to be Nimrod as the etymology of the word shows. Tam means “to make perfect” and muz “fire,” meaning ‘to make perfect by fire.’ The name makes it clear that Nimrod originated the practices of human and child sacrifices by burning them alive in the fire.

After the Christian Church was started in 31 A.D., over the next 2-4 centuries most of the pagan practices associated with the worship of Nimrod and Semiramis were transferred by the Church in Rome to Christianity by merely giving them Christian names and concocted association with the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We know that Jesus Christ was born nowhere near December 25th. But Sun worship took place around that date. Simply put, all the pagan practices of the Babylonian Mystery religion started by Semiramis in memory of her slain son Nimrod and worship of herself have continued in Christmas. Those are the true wicked origins of Christmas, conceived in rebellion against the true Creator God, which obviously the true God hates. Satan has palmed off worship of a false savior Nimrod, the greatest rebel against the true Creator God, as worship of the true Savior, Jesus Christ.

Here is God’s condemnation of the worship system started by Semiramis in Babylon in Revelation 17:1-6: “1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto you the judgment of the great whore [Semiramis had literally become a whore in her city of Babylon, a temple prostitute] that sits upon many waters [many waters in Bible prophecy is a symbol for many peoples]: 2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, [this is talking about literal fornication Semiramis, as a temple priestess-prostitute, committed with the kings of the earth who all lived near Babylon as the human population was growing soon after the Flood and had not reached their final destinations in their migrations, and it also refers to spiritual fornication, meaning turning people away from worship of the true God] and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication [which refers to her religious worship system]. 3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns [the seven heads refer to the last seven resurrections of the Roman Empire which were called the Holy Roman Empire, on which the great false Roman Church sits. Rome’s religious practices were those started by Semiramis, the original whore of Babylon].

4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color [which are colors of royalty. That should help us easily identify this great whore from these symbols. Only the head of one Church, the one based in Rome, sits on a royal throne as king. This is the great whore Jesus was prophesying about in this prophecy] and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: [Here Jesus refers to all her religious doctrines and practices as abominations and filthiness in His sight]. 5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. [This prophecy leaves no doubt that the religion of this great whore is the same as the original Babylonian Mystery religion of Semiramis]. 6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” That further identifies this whore which has martyred the true saints of Jesus Christ from about 550 – 1600 A.D.

Jesus thus minced no words about what He thought of this false religious system: filthy fornication and abomination in His sight, no matter how well Satan has deceived mankind with this system by dressing it in gorgeous garb and emotional sentimentality during Christmas in Christmas carols and other beautiful music. Jesus Christ admonished His people in Revelation 18:4: “Come out of her [meaning spiritual Babylon], my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.”

Deuteronomy 12:32 makes it very clear that God does not want us to mix His ways with any false ways: “What thing so ever I command you, observe to do it: you shall not add thereto, nor diminish from it.”

These are God’s plain words to all who say that they can mix the horrible customs of outright paganism rooted in rebellion against the Creator God and child sacrifices, with a supposed “focus on Christ.” They are adding to the worship of God what He commanded them not to do and diminishing the practices that He commanded them to observe, such as His seven annual holy days and the Sabbaths mentioned in Leviticus 23.

ORIGINS OF CUSTOMS ASSOCIATED WITH CHRISTMAS

Now let’s briefly look at the origins of some of the customs associated with Christmas.

THE SANTA MYTH – Nimrod was known by different names among different peoples. He was known as ‘Santa’ in Asia Minor. In America, he was remade into jolly “St. Nick” or “Saint Nicholas” in America in Washington Irving’s Knickerbocker History of New York in 1809.

EXCHANGING GIFTS – Christians believe that they got the custom of exchanging gifts during Christmas from the Bible, when the three wise men came to see Jesus and presented gifts to him. But let’s look at what the scripture actually says in Matthew 2:1-11, “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men [this verse does not say 3 wise men, just wise men] from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews?…And when they were come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down, and worshipped Him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.”

The wise men here did not exchange gifts with each other or give gifts to others in the presence of the baby Jesus but gave gifts to Him. They also acknowledged Him as the King of the Jews. So, they were coming in the presence of a King and giving gifts to a King, as was the custom in the East when meeting royalty. Neither were these “birthday presents” because they met Jesus well after the day he was born.

Therefore, the custom of gift giving on Christmas is not biblical. There is no mention of such a custom in the Bible. It was an ancient pagan custom adopted into Christianity from Saturnalia celebrations by the Romans.

CHRISTMAS TREE - As already mentioned, originally Semiramis was worshipped as a tree in the Babylonian Mystery religion. But later she herself, and the Babylonian and Egyptian priests after her death concocted other reasons. She lived many years in Egypt, Babylon as well as Assyria whose modern descendants are the Germans. The Babylonian Mystery religion was a Babylonian-Assyrian religion. The Germans from antiquity worshipped the tree and continued worshipping it when the Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, because by that time the Roman Church had already started celebrating Christmas. The Roman Church then also made the Christmas tree as part of its Christmas celebrations.

Walsh in Curiosities of Popular Customs, on p. 242 describes a fable that grew around tree worship: “An old Babylonish fable told of an evergreen tree which sprang out of a dead tree stump. The old stump symbolized the dead Nimrod, the new evergreen tree symbolized that Nimrod had come to life again in Tammuz! Among the Druids the oak was sacred, among the Egyptians it was the palm, and in Rome it was the fir, which was decorated with red berries during the Saturnalia!”

CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATIONS – called “Oscilla”, hung on trees have also been adopted from Saturnalia celebrations, and anciently represented human sacrifices.

Regarding Holly Wreaths, Yule Logs and Mistletoe, The Encyclopedia Americana states, “The holly, the mistletoe, the Yule log…are relics of pre-Christian time,” meaning the customs originated in paganism.

The Encyclopedia Britannica provides the origin of the holly wreath: “During the Saturnalia, the Roman winter festival, branches of holly were exchanged as tokens of friendship. The earliest Roman Christians apparently used holly as a decoration at the Christmas season.”

BRIEF HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA

Here is a brief history of Christmas in America.

Most of how Christmas is celebrated in America is of recent origin. After the KJV version of the Bible appeared and common people read the Bible for themselves, they began to realize that Christmas was not even mentioned in the Bible. When Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces took over England in 1645, they canceled Christmas to rid England of decadence.

The Pilgrims who came to America were even more Orthodox than Cromwell. Christmas was not a holiday among them. In fact, the celebration of Christmas was actually banned in Boston from 1659 to 1681, though the Jamestown colony celebrated it.

After the American Revolution, Christmas fell out of favor being viewed as an English custom. It was declared as a federal holiday only on June 26, 1870.

In the early 1800s, because of high unemployment, there were usually riots in New York during Christmas. This was the impetus for certain members of the upper classes to find ways to change the way Christmas was celebrated in America.

In 1819, Best-selling author Washington Irving wrote a series of stories about celebration of Christmas in an English manor house in which a squire invited peasants into his home for the holiday. Irving’s idea was to bring groups together across wealth or social status to have a peaceful and warm-hearted holiday. Irving’s accounts were not based on actual celebrations, but were inventions of his own mind, as to how Christmas celebrations should be.

At the same time, Charles Dickens created the holiday tale called A Christmas Carol, the message of which was to focus on the importance of charity and good will during the holiday. Thus, Americans began to embrace Christmas as a family holiday. They began to unearth old customs on how various peoples, including recent immigrants, celebrated this holiday. That’s how all the traditions such as Christmas trees, sending holiday greetings and gift giving and all the ancient pagan customs of Semiramis and Nimrod came into the Christmas celebrations of today.

The old St. Nick or Santa Claus of Dutch culture resurfaced in Irving’s Knickerbocker History. Less than 20 years later, Seminary Professor Clement Moore after reading the Knickerbocker History penned the poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” which added details to the Santa Claus myth. Originally Santa Claus did not wear red clothing. But red clothing and commercialization of Christmas began when the Coca Cola company used Santa Claus wearing red clothing in its ads. Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer was the product of Robert L. May’s imagination in 1939. Thus, over about a 100-year period, Americans built a Christmas tradition all their own by borrowing freely from various cultures, and then merchants thoroughly popularized and commercialized it to their advantage. Merchants in almost the entire world have adopted the American model of Christmas to their commercial advantage. Today, many merchants realize 60% of their sales during the Christmas shopping season.

THE CHOICE IS YOURS

Now you know the truth about Christmas and its true origins about 2,100 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, with much of its customs rooted in wicked human and child sacrifices originated by Nimrod. All this was done in blatant rebellion against the true Creator God, Jesus Christ. Nimrod is the false savior worshipped in the customs of Christmas. God’s true Church does not celebrate Christmas, Easter or any such paganism. The choice to celebrate it or not is entirely yours, but so are the consequences.

God describes the consequences of Baal worship in Jeremiah 19:3-9. Baal was one of Nimrod’s names. This is a prophecy for the very near future: “3 And say, Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem [used as a symbol for all descendants of the ancient Israelites because it was their ancient capital]; Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever hears, his ears shall tingle. 4 Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods [Nimrod, the false savior], whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;5 They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spoke it, neither came it into my mind: [This does apply to the abortions in America and Britain resulting from promiscuous behavior during the Christmas-New Year holiday season] 6 Therefore, behold, the days come, says the Lord, that this place shall…be called…the valley of slaughter… 7…and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcasses will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. 8 And I will make this city desolate, and a hissing; everyone that passes thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof. 9…Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.”

God in this and many other prophecies makes it absolutely clear that the consequences for America, Britain and the State of Israel [because Jerusalem was the combined capitol of both ancient Kingdoms of Israel and Judah] of worshipping Baal or Nimrod in Christmas and following paganism, born in rebellion against the true God will be defeat in war, a massive slaughter of the populations and national slavery.

Our hope is that you will choose to do the will of Jesus Christ and not your self-will in following wicked pagan traditions such as Christmas and Easter which are rooted in worship of the false savior, another Jesus called Nimrod. God commanded the Sabbath day to be kept holy for all of humanity when He created Adam and Eve. It is a sign that identifies who the Creator God’s people are because they worship Him on the day He instructed that He be worshipped and not on Sunday, the day of the pagans Sun worship.