Facts About Christmas

Facts About Christmas
(Kent E. Heaton Sr.)

Some years ago, a Catholic Priest preached a sermon that Santa Clause was
dead. What a commotion was caused and parents came out of church crying.
Imagine messing with a tradition as strong as that and not getting into a
lot of trouble about it all. It reminds me of the fellow who said he knew
that Santa Clause was real because the Easter bunny had told him so.

Christmas is here again and it looks like it will be here for a very long
time. The longer one tells an untruth, the more it becomes truth - so it is
with Christmas. The sad part is there are children of God who still do not
understand that Christmas is a Catholic mass. To celebrate Christmas as the
birth of Christ is to embrace Catholicism.

As the Catholic church is the mother of all apostasy, her children called
Protestants have followed in her same way. The World Book Encyclopedia
explains that Christmas is of Catholic origin meaning, "Christes Masse".
Bishop Liberius of Rome adopted December 25 as the birth day of Jesus in the
year 354. They chose this date because the feast of the sun, or winter
solstice, was a familiar Roman feast celebrating the victory of light over
darkness.

The disciples of the New Testament never celebrated the birth of Jesus.
They remembered His death, burial and resurrection once a week but never His
birth. In fact, they lived during the same time of Jesus and could very
well have known what day Jesus was born. They were his age and even older
and Mary His mother was with the disciples in Acts 1. Why was the day of
His birth never given in scripture? It is not important to God!

The Christian should recognize that to take part in any facet of Christmas
as the birth of Christ (mangers, angels, stars, shepherds, wise men, etc.)
is to practice something that God never gave authority for. It makes a
difference to God!

No one knows what day He was born. December 25 could not be the birth day
of Jesus because the shepherds would not be in the field with their sheep
during this time of the year.
The Bible never said to celebrate His birth - the Catholic church did.
Myriad's of secular writers and religious writers affirm that no one knows
the birth date of Jesus.

The wise men never saw Jesus in the manger. Matthew 2:11 says they found
him in a "house." If Herod's order to kill the children from two years old
and under is a help in determining the age of Jesus, a rough guess could be
that Jesus (as a "child" - Matthew 2:11) was at least a year old and maybe a
little older. The reasoning I offer for this is if Jesus is six months old,
why kill two-year-old children? Herod wanted to make certain the baby Jesus
was killed. (I suggest this only as an idea - not really worth a plug
nickel but food for thought) The fact is though - Jesus was a child when
the Wise men saw him.

No one knows how many wise men there were. There could have been three,
four, five, twenty-five or ten. No one knows. To suggest there were three
because three gifts were given is to suggest that if you received three
gifts for your birthday that three people gave them to you.

The church in Trenton will not celebrate today or next week in any fashion
that points to the birth of Jesus. Is this because we do not accept or
believe in His birth? On the contrary, the greatest birth ever blessed upon
this world was that holy night of redemption. We will celebrate his death,
burial and resurrection as we do each first day of the week.

It is important to us that we follow the Bible and the Bible alone.
"Christmas" is not found in God's holy writ. That matters to us and we pray
it will matter to you. It is a nice thought to celebrate the birth of Jesus
but God said that we could not add to His revelation - even if an angel said
so. (Galatians 1:9,10) Christmas did not come from the mind of God and God
minds what we say comes from Him. We are seeking the paths of God's will
and we ask you to join with us in that journey.

Kent E. Heaton Sr.
P. O. Box 265
Trenton, Florida 32693
Kerux@svic.net