Regarding the birth of our Lord, I read in Matthew, Chapter 2 and verse 1, these words: ‘NOW when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.’ There is no evidence whatsoever that Jesus Christ was born on December 25. History does not record the fate of His birth and the Bible is entirely silent on this subject. It is very evident, friends that God did not wish us to know, or He would not have left us in such complete ignorance as to the exact birth date of Jesus. December 25 has been handed down by the Roman Catholic Church as the traditional date of the birth of Christ. That date was set by Pope Julius. I understand that the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates January 6 as the birthday of Jesus. That, too, of course, is only a traditional date – there is no evidence whatsoever. In verse 1 of Matthew 2 it gives us an indication as to when He was born: ‘NOW when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa in the days of Herod the king.’ Now, we have evidence to prove that Herod died in March of 4 B.C., and Herod was still living when Jesus was born. Jesus was born about 4 B.C. Of course, that perfectly harmonizes with that great prophecy of Daniel 9 which outlines the time when Jesus would be baptized and also when He would die. Jesus died when He was thirty-three years of age in A.D. 31. Working back, you have to drop a year when you cross the B.C. – A.D. mark, and that would bring you to 4 B.C. That all harmonizes. In verse 13, God says, ‘And when they were departed,(that is, the wise men had departed) behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.’ (Matthew 2:13-15) And, so, friends, Jesus was born just a little while before that – He was born in 4 B.C. We have evidence to indicate that Jesus was not born on December 25. While we don’t know the date, it is very, very evident that He was not born on December 25. You remember in Luke 2 and verse 1, that Caesar Augustus had passed a decree that the whole world should be taxed, He would not have people traveling to enroll and be taxed in the middle of winter. December 25 in the northern hemisphere is the coldest time. As Caesar Augustus ruled Western Europe and right down into Palestine, it would have been almost impossible for the people to have traveled across the country to enroll at that time. It is very, very evident that no emperor would compel people to be enrolled in the middle of winter. When Jesus was born the shepherds were watching their flocks on the hills. It is unlikely they would be doing that in the middle of winter, for Jerusalem is a cold place. A friend of mine told me that when he traveled the world, the coldest night he spent anywhere in the world was in Jerusalem. I read from Dr. Adam Clarke of the Methodist Church, that at times the cold in the Middle East is so very intense as to kill man and beast. Note this from an illustrated British Magazine, Picture post – ‘Christmas snows fall on Jerusalem.’ That was when the British troops were in Jerusalem. December 25 and Jerusalem was covered with snow! So, it is unlikely that they would have shepherds out on the hills looking after the sheep at such a cold time. I notice that early Christian writers differ greatly as to the date. Some have claimed January 2, others May 20, April 18, March 28, January 6. In fact, do you know there have been at least 136 different dates set for the birth of Jesus? That is enough to choose from is it not? From another writer I read, ‘Fourteen Christmases are celebrated in Jerusalem annually and they are all on different dates.’ In the days of Cromwell in England a decree was passed forbidding the celebration of Christmas on December 25, for, like the Scott’s, they regarded it as a pagan holiday. The Catholic Encyclopedia mentions March 28, April 19 or 20, and May 20 as dates advocated by early writers, and further states: ‘Lupi has shown that there is no month in the year to which respectable authorities have not assigned Christ’s birth.’ Vol. 3 page 724. It is very evident that it was not in the middle of winter. About the fourth century after Christ, when the church had fallen away from Truth, December 25 was advocated. Remember, the apostles all died before A.D., 100, the Book Revelation was written before that, and as 2 Thessalonians says, there would be a terrible falling away from the Truth of God. So, the church fell away until it went down into what is known as the Dark Ages, and in the fourth century the church of God had fallen away from the Bible. Not only that, but paganism was creeping in. They hated the Jews and were anxious to win the pagans. Gradually they worked towards the pagans, adopting doctrines and arguments to harmonize with them, till they were as far away from the teachings of the Jews as they could be. Paganism rolled into the church in such a tidal wave that it just eclipsed the Truth of God. Instead of God’s Truth it was nothing but ‘baptized paganism’ that ruled through the Dark Ages. They drifted right away from the early Christian standards, till the church which started out as the light of the world ended up by dragging the world into the Dark Ages. When the church had adopted a great deal from paganism they set up Dec. 25 as a traditional date of the birthday of Christ. ‘The observance of Christmas is not of divine appointment, nor is it of New Testament origin … The fathers of the first three centuries do not speak of any special observance of the nativity.’ Encyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, vol 2.p. 376. ‘December 25 was celebrated as the birthday of the ancient Persian sun-god Mithras, whose religion was a revival of Christianity during the early Christian centuries.’ Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed., vol, 18 pp 622-524. Now, I am going to give you another side to the picture. Turn to Genesis, Chapter 10, verse 8, and I will show you some very, very interesting things. This is after the flood. ‘And Cush begat Nimrod and he became a despot.’ Nimrod set up a counterfeit system to the Truth of God. There was one line, the descendants of Shem, standing by the Truth of God, but Nimrod became a dictator and set out to introduce a system of religion that would counterfeit the Truth of God through and through. He was the one who originated Babylon, for you read in verse 9: ‘He was a mighty hunter before the LORD (or, ‘against the Lord’ as other translations have it): wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before (or against) the LORD.’ He led in rebellion and revolution against God. Verse 10 says ‘And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel,…’ The margin says ‘Babylon.’ Chapter 11 and verse 31 says, ‘And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot, the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan; …’ Now, we have Nimrod setting up a counterfeit religion down there in Babylon. God took a man out of Babylon, out of Ur of the Chaldees, and placed him over there in Canaan to represent the Truth of God, and from Abraham came the city of Jerusalem. From there on, my friends, right through the Bible, you read of those two cities – Babylon and Jerusalem. In fact, the Bible is really the tale of two cities – Babylon and Jerusalem. They run through to the last book in the Bible, for there you will read of the doom forever of Babylon and the exaltation forever of the New Jerusalem. In those two cities are centered two different worships – one the very Truth of God and the other the counterfeit, paganism. God took Abraham out of Babylon and used him to establish the Truth of God in this earth. When the city of Babylon went down the Babylonian priests fled to Pergamos in Asia Minor. When the Romans conquered Pergamos they were very obliging and accommodating – they would just take and adopt any god at all, placing its image in the Pantheon of Rome. That represented the gods of the nations, and if the Jews had had an image to their Jehovah they would have taken His image and put it there in the Pantheon. They took the religion of Pergamos and adopted it very largely in Rome. That is why, in the Book of Revelation, talking about Rome and Pergamos, it says, ‘where Satan’s seat is’, because that system of religion originating in Babylon, transferred to Pergamos and hence to Rome, was the very religion of Satan. It was counterfeit to the Truth of God, for always remember, dear friends, that the Devil aims at having whatever God has. If God has a religion then he is going to have a religion. Away back in the beginning when he rebelled against God he said, ‘I will be like the Most High.’ If God has a church, then he will have a church. You didn’t know that perhaps, why you read in Revelation 2 about the ‘synagogue of Satan.’ In 2 Corinthians 11 it tells you that the devil has ministers, and they operate in the sphere of religion. The great battle of the ages has not been between religion and no religion, oh no! The great battle of the ages has been between Truth and error, between the true religion and a false religion. The most dangerous thing on this earth is not no religion. Atheism is not much of a problem to the Truth of God, but a counterfeit religion that operates which was the great master rebel himself, shifted with the down fall of the city of Babylon to Pergamos in Asia Minor and hence to Rome. Rome is never mentioned in the prophecies of the Bible, but Babylon (as the Truth of God) while leading men into darkness, is the most dangerous thing. The system of religion that originated back there in Babylon, is behind it. Why? Because Rome was really a continuation of the system of religion that originated in ancient Babylon – it was an echo of Babylon. Hence God refers to Rome all the way through as Babylon. The system of religion that was founded there in Rome was nothing else than the old Babylonian paganism perhaps with the names changed. When I say that I am not straining the point at all for if you pick up the Roman Catholic Bible you turn over there to the Epistle of Peter where it mentions Babylon, and they have in the margin ‘Rome’. You turn to Revelation 17 in the Catholic Bible and where it mentions Babylon they will tell you it means Rome. So you see here is something on which both Catholics and Protestants are agreed – Babylon of the Book of Revelation is nothing else but Rome. Why? Because she adopted the very system that originated back there in Babylon as the great counterfeit of the Truth of God. Behind the paganism of Babylon was sun worship. Notice Isaiah 14:12. Here is a verse that is very, very interesting. ‘How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer … how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God… I will be like the Most High.’ Satan intended to exalt himself and set up a religion that would be the very counterfeit of the Truth of God. Now, do you have a marginal reading for that word ‘Lucifer’? ‘Day star.’ Go outside on a clear day and what is the only star you see shining? The Sun. The sun is a star and stars are suns. Lucifer meant ‘Day star’ – the great star you see shining in the day, and the devil set up a religion that was centered in sun worship. All through the Old Testament you will find that when the people of God drifted away into paganism they drifted into sun worship. Baal worship was only sun worship, and all those systems of paganism in those ancient countries, were, one and all, sun worship. Behind the worship of the sun was the worship of the devil. Paul says in Corinthians that when those heathens and pagans sacrificed they sacrificed to devils, for behind Baal worship and behind paganism was nothing else than devil worship. You will find the same thing down there in Egypt. Now, God called Abraham out of Babylon and set up the Truth of God. When Israel drifted back into pagan Egypt, God lifted a people out of Egypt to hold the Truth of God, and right down here in these last days, the message of God is ‘Come out of Babylon my people.’ All the way through God has been lifting people out of Babylon paganism to stand by the Truth of God. When He called His people out of Egypt, notice what He said in this very interesting statement in Leviticus 18:3. ‘…. and after the doings of the Land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.’ You see, my friends, these pagans in Egypt and in Canaan had a system of religion, ‘their ordinances, rites and ceremonies and holy days.’ God called them out saying: ‘Don’t do as those people are doing. Follow me and worship me. Keep my Truth, but don’t worship me as the pagans worship their gods.’ That is plain, is it not? Turn to Deuteronomy 12 and you will notice again that God emphasizes this in very strong and emphatic terms. Deuteronomy 12:30 ‘Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.’ Now, that is plain and simple isn’t it? God says ‘Take my commandments and do them – do not add to them and do not take from them.’ He tells you the same thing in the last chapter in the Bible saying: ‘Whatever you do, do not go to the pagans and take their things and then hand that to me as worship. Take my word and stand by it. Do not add to it and do not take away. I do not want the religion of the pagans to be taken and handed over as part of my worship.’ I want you to notice that, for I am going to show you now, my friends, how even professed Christianity like tragic Israel before them, dropped the Truth and the commandments of God and wandered into Paganism. Before we get through, tonight you will see it. Christianity today is just riddled with paganism which God said they were not to touch. Come over to Ezekiel 8 and verse 13. Israel had drifted away into idolatry and God raised up Ezekiel to preach a message of warning to that people. He gave Ezekiel a glimpse of their abominations and their paganism. ‘He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.’ Tammuz was the Babylonian name for the sun god and when they worshipped Tammuz they made the sign of Tammuz – ‘ T ‘. But when the Babylonians made a ‘ T ‘ for Tammuz they made it in the form of a cross. Now, we read on. ‘Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD’S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.’ Here they had turned their backs on the Truth of God and were worshipping the sun toward the east. Tell me, my friends when is the sun in the east? Early in the morning – is that not so? They worshipped the sun toward the east and dedicated the different days of the week to their gods. The first day dedicated to their main god, the sun, hence the name Sun day. Early on Sun day morning they would get up bowing and worshipping toward the east. Ever see people getting up very early on Sunday morning and getting along to church? You check up and you still find that when they are bowing down in their churches they are bowing towards the east. That is where it came from. And, friends, when they made the sign of the cross, the sign of Tammuz, they put the sign of the sun around it – a cross within a circle. Ever see churches with something like that up on the top? It was the same system of religion that brought Sunday into Protestantism. That is where it came from! Turn over to Ezekiel, chapter 6, verse 4: ‘And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken:…’ God was opposed and very hostile to them. As the Christians were endeavoring to win the pagans, and pagans to a man were sun worshippers, for behind all paganism was sun worship, they found the pagans worshipping the birthday of the sun on December 25. Remember, my friends, December 25 was kept by the pagans hundreds of years before Jesus was born – did you know that? - not as the birthday of the Son of God, but as the birthday of the ‘S-u-n.’ In fact, I notice here from the Encyclopedia, Britannica 11th Ed., that it says: ‘In Britain, December 25 was a festival long before the conversion to Christianity.’ The old Druids, a sun worshipping cult in the British Isles, kept and looked to December 25 as the birthday of the sun long before they ever heard of Jesus. The Yule log was used when they sacrificed fire to the sun god. When those early priests went and found the pagans worshipping the sun on December 25 they said, ‘Don’t call it the birthday of the ‘s-u-n’ – call it the birthday of the ‘Son’ of God’. Here is something else very interesting. Somebody asked me ‘Where did the Christmas tree come from?’ You listen to this written away back long before the time of Jesus, as the people of God were drifting into paganism: ‘HEAR ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto 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 (the margin says ‘statutes or ordinances’) of the people are vain: …’ You see they had a system of religion – ordinances – holy days – they had a counterfeit of the Truth of God! God says that is ‘Vain’ worship – useless worship. Listen – ‘… for one cutteth 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. 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, …’ (Jeremiah 10:1-4) my friends, way back there in their worship of the sun on December 25, they not only had the Yule log, their big dinners and drink, but they would go out into the forest, cut down a tree, set it up and deck it with their ornaments. Don’t you see it? Very simple is it not? Here is something else very interesting and this time in Jeremiah 7:17. ‘Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, …’ Somebody asked me about the ‘queen of heaven.’ They tell us the Virgin Mary is the queen of heaven’. The only time, my friends, when you will find that expression in the Bible is when it is talking about sun-worshipping paganism, and they exalted a woman to the skies and worshipped her as the mother of god. They were baking cakes away back there to the ‘queen of heaven’. Tammuz was the sun god and then there was the mother, or the woman, and her name was Ishta. Tammuz was the sun god and his wife was Ishta. When they baked their cakes to the queen of heaven they always made them round with the sign of the sun and stamped them with the sign of the sun. Why are they always round? They baked their cakes to the queen of heaven. They made hot-cross buns hundreds of years before even Jesus was born. ZZresurrection of Jesus. Nothing at all. Listen to this from the Catholic Encyclopedia, vol 5,pp. 227: ‘A great many pagan customs celebrating the return of spring generated in the Easter’ (that’s an admission, isn’t it?) The egg is the symbol of the generation of life of early spring. That is where your Easter eggs come from. They say it comes from paganism. I will go further. Do you know before the pagans baked their cakes to the queen of heaven they had a forty days’ fast? Ever heard of the forty days of Lent that precedes Easter? You can read the Bible from cover to cover and you will not find any forty days’ fast just before the crucifixion of Jesus. But the pagans back there had a forty-day fast before they celebrated their worship to Ishta when they baked their cakes to the ‘queen of heaven’. Ishta in the Chaldean, is Easter in the English. They called it the very same name. As Christianity drifted away from the Truth of God and, trying to get a long way from Jerusalem were anxious to bring in the pagans, they drifted right into paganism and ended up in the Dark Ages. Not long ago somebody asked how it was that some people do not eat meat on Fridays and why they have fish. They asked: ‘What is the significance there?’ There is no religious significance at all – none whatsothtamalgamation of the old Jewish ritual plus very largely the paganism of the heathen. And that, my friends, is where Sunday came from – from sun-worshipping paganism. If you go along to communion in the Church of Rome they will give you a piece of bread that is always round. There are Catholics and ex-Catholics who will bear me out that the wafer is always round. Look at it and you will find ‘I H S’ stamped on it. You say, ‘What does that mean?’ They will say different things among them ‘I have suffered.’ However, it is very, very significant that if you go back into Egyptian paganism, hundreds of years before the time of Christ, they, too, worshipped their god with a round wafer with ‘I.H.S’ stamped on it. Then, those letters referred to their three leading gods – Isis, Horus and Seb. It is too much of a coincidence when professed Christians have the very same thing – always round and the same three letters. You see Christianity adopted paganism to the letter, and the last message to this dying world to get a people ready for the coming of Jesus says, ‘Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins.’ This falling away from the Truth of God that ended up with all of this came very largely from two things – to gain the pagans and hatred of the Jews. They tried to get away from Jerusalem as far as possible and as close to the pagans as possible. Jerusalem was the center of the worship of the Truth of God. Babylon was the opposite. Even today, if you keep the Commandments, Christians will say, ‘You’re a Jew’ as though that finishes everything. Remember, friends, all the religion we have came to us from the Jews. The Lord Jesus Christ who died for you was a Jew. He said: ‘salvation is of the Jews.’ The same philosophy that plunged this world into the blackest period of its long dark history came from the same hatred against Jerusalem and anything Jewish. Be careful, my friends, do not repeat that awful phrase for God is writing it down. ‘By your words,’ He says, ‘you will be justified and by you words you will be condemned.’ Here is a letter from Constantine. It is quoted by Eusebius, the great church historian of the days when the church was plunging into paganism, in his life of Constantine, ‘It appears an unworthy thing that the celebration of this most holy thing’ (that was in connection with the death of Jesus) ‘we should follow the practice of the Jews who have impiously defiled their hands with the enormous sin. Let us have nothing in common with the pagans and what led to the great plunge from the Truth of God. All the Bible writers were Jews, but the professed followers of the apostles wanted nothing to do with the ‘detestable Jewish crowd.’ They dropped the ‘detestable Jewish crowd’ and they dropped the ‘detestable’ Jewish Book. They lost all Truth and paganism came right in. When paganism had eclipsed the Truth of God during the Dark Ages, under the name of Jesus, professed Christians turned round and crushed under foot those that followed the words of Jesus. That is why you read in Revelation 17:4-6: ‘And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour,….’ The woman is a church, a religion, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, ‘MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT,…’ Why called ‘Babylon’? Because my friends, it was but an echo of Babylon. ‘And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.’ He could not understand it. Here was a church professing to be the true church of Jesus and yet at the same time crushing under foot the Truth of God and drunken with the blood of the very saints of Jesus. When they accepted paganism they not only dropped the Bible but persecuted those that followed it, referring to them as ‘Jews!’ Today, even in this city, you hear the same. There was a tailor in France during the reign of Henry the Second Caught working on one of these pagan holidays, he was brought before the judge, and this was his speech of defense: ‘Sir, I am a poor man, I have nothing but the labour of my hands to depend on. The Bible tells me of no days to keep but the Sabbath and hence I do not keep them.’ But they condemned him and burnt him at the stake for working on Good Friday, a pagan day, and, friends, Good Friday is still observed, is it not? Good Friday is just as pagan as Sunday. You have no more scriptural evidence for Sunday than you have for hot cross buns, for Good Friday, or Easter Sunday. They all come down to us branded with paganism. Worse than that, Sunday is stamped with the very name of the sun god! The devil said, ‘I will be like the Most High,’ and he stands back today hurling blasphemy into the face of Jesus, when he has the whole Christian world, Catholic, yes and protestant, bowing and worshipping on his day that is stamped by his very name – Sun day. I think I have just about shown you why I quit Sunday keeping. My friends, I am going over there with the Lord Jesus Christ, who was a Jew. Tonight they can say, ‘You’re a Jew’ but I want to be on the side of Jesus, don’t you? I am like the great British Prime Minister, Disraeli, who, by the way was a Jew. During a debate one of the opposition cast a very slighting remark about the Jews. Disraeli smiled and said, ‘That is all right, for I know one half of Christiandom worships a Jew and the other a Jewess (the Virgin Mary).’ It is true is it not? My Catholic friends, if you want to pay homage or respect to the Virgin Mary, follow the religion that she followed. If you want to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, follow Him all the way. I read in Revelation, talking about Babylon, it says: ‘And the merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linens’ and goes on right through the merchandise of that power – she would be the greatest landowner in her country, would dabble not only in politics and sign pacts with the governments of earth, but also deal ‘in the bodies and souls of men.’ That is the last. That is their last consideration. Gold and pearls are their main consideration and lastly are the bodies and souls of men. They have even traded in them, for it will cost you a lot of money to see some of the bodies of the saints. I have seen poor people down on their knees praying to dried up bones. They are gathering in money from the fictitious souls of men in a fictitious purgatory. But the least of their consideration is the souls of men. It starts with gold and ends with the souls and the bodies of men. That is man’s estimation. That is paganism’s estimation. What a contrast with Christ. He declared, ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul.’ Gather up all the gold, precious stones and wealth of the whole world and one person outweighs it all. Babylon places wealth, and political power first and people last. Christ places one person above all and at the end of His earthly life as He faced Calvary He saw ‘the travail of His soul,’ He saw people way down here in nineteen hundred and eighty nine, who would be willing to follow Him in the face of ridicule. In the face of difficulty they would be willing to follow Him all the way, and because of that, friends, He took hold of those nails in His dying agony and held on till His great heart broke for you and for me; to open the door to glory for those who will accept him. Why not do it now, friends? Why not give Him your heart and your life putting them into the hand that was once nailed to the cross for you and determine to follow Him all the way?
Posted on: Fri, 18 Apr 2014 12:07:38 +0000
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