The
Midnight Cry:
A Prophetic Witness to the Church Today
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16
What GOD Says To Christians About Christmas!
Through a vivid dream, God reveals what HE
thinks of this custom.
On 23rd December 1996, God gave
me a vivid dream. I was sitting in a conventional church service. A man was
preaching from the pulpit to a group of Christians. On the platform behind
him stood a Christmas tree, bedecked in silver and gold and glittering
adornments.Suddenly, the Spirit came
upon me! I stood up and interrupted the preacher in the middle of his
discourse. Loudly, I blurted out a rebuke as the Spirit moved me. I couldn't
hold the words in!
I challenged these people on
what they were doing. They couldn't see the error in their ways. Here they
were, celebrating the birth of Christ so they thought. What they didn't
realise is that they were celebrating the birth of the wrong Messiah a
false Christ!
Jesus Christ was NOT born on
December 25. Nimrod was! The 'Christ' most Christians are worshipping by
honouring the date of the re-birth of the winter sun, is a false Christ, not
the One who died for you!
Saturnalia
Sun Worship!
Furthermore, the
materialistic celebrations do not honour a God who condemns materialism as a
false god! They hark back to pagan antiquity when heathens indulged in
revelry and sensual indulgence to celebrate the re-birth of the sun at the
winter solstice.
The god being worshipped at
Christmas is not the God of the Bible, but a god contrived in the minds of
the world. You can take your pick. The pagans may have honoured the sun god
at this time. Today, we are more 'sophisticated'. Our modern gods include
self, wealth, and tradition.
There is not a word in the
Bible commanding us to celebrate the time of Christ's birth even if He
were born around December 25 (which it can be proved He wasn't). Read any
worthwhile encyclopaedia and see that celebrations on 25th December antedate
Christianity by hundreds of years. It's just that it had a different name.
The Romans called it the Saturnalia.
Indeed, it
is admitted by the most learned and candid writers of all parties that the
day of our Lord's birth cannot be determined, and that within the
Christian Church no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the
third century, and that not till the fourth century was far advanced did
it gain much observance. (The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop,
pp. 92,93).
It was subtly, cleverly
imposed on the majority and given 'Christian' acceptability by the emerging
Church in Rome, whom God labels a Great Prostitute in Revelation 17. She is
a false church, riddled with occult practices and paganism adopted from the
Babylonian Mystery Religions of the East which God condemns in His Word.
Christmas is a deceptive
demonic custom. GOD HATES IT!
Earlier this year, another
prophet received those very words GOD HATES CHRISTMAS!! I am not alone in
what I am receiving from God. These are not the rantings of one idiot. The
ones sorely deceived are Christians who cannot see how vile Christmas is,
and that God says in His Word we should not observe it (see next page).
It doesn't honour Him!
Alexander Hislop, a
theologian who researched and compiled the information in The Two
Babylons in the early years of this century, continues to explain how
this evil custom was given 'Christian' acceptability:
Long before
the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival
was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in
honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it
may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to
swell the number of the normal adherents of Christianity, the same
festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of
Christ (p. 93).
There were many true
Christians who were not at all happy about this syncretism the adoption
of pagan customs into Christianity. They knew a pagan festivity had no place
in true worship. In fact, Hislop says:
This
tendency on the part of Christians to meet paganism half way was very
early developed; and we find Tertullian, even in his day, about the year
230, bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of
Christ [those who were apostatising] in this respect, and contrasting
it with the strict fidelity of the pagans to their own superstition
(ibid.).
Don't we find the same true
today?! There is more fervour among the unconverted to 'have a jolly good
Christmas' than among true Christians! That should not be surprising. Anyone
with the Spirit of God living in them cannot help but detest the gross
self-indulgence, the lasciviousness and sin that permeates this idolatrous
time.
The organised Church, by
Tertullian's time, had drifted so far away from the true traditions passed
on to it (c.f. Jude 3) that he admits most 'Christians' were "strangers
to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to God."
Instead, through deception the majority of 'Christians' had accepted pagan
substitutes:
...the
Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia... gifts
are carried to and fro, new year's day presents are made with din, and
sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful
are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no
solemnity from the Christians. Upright men strove to stem the tide, but
in spite of all their efforts, the apostasy went on, till the Church, with
the exception of a small remnant was submerged under pagan superstition (ibid.).
Upright people in the Church
today who see the paganism behind Christmas may want to stem this tide of
apostasy, but it is impossible. Many like this revelry. They want a good
time, so, some reason: why not join the pagans in their jollity?
"What's wrong with
merrymaking?" they ask feebly.
There's nothing wrong with
being merry, if it is for the right reasons and at the right time, as
Solomon said (Eccl 3:4). The God whom Christians should worship is revealed
to us in the Bible. He tells Christians when to rejoice before Him (Deut
16:11,14; Lev 23).
The major 'Christian'
denominations today justify perpetuating this heresy using human reasoning.
They claim that the Church has 'Christianized' this pagan festival of
Saturnalia.
That is A LIE! No man can
'Christianize' anything. No human being is holy or capable of making
anything holy. God is the only one who can hallow anything, and He hasn't
hallowed or 'Christianized' Christmas.
HE HATES IT! The spirit of
Christmas is in direct conflict with the Spirit of Jesus Christ!
The God whom true Christians
worship says: DON'T WORSHIP ME BY ADAPTING PAGAN CUSTOMS TO SUIT YOURSELVES
(Deut 12:30,31). It is as bad as sacrificing your children to false gods!
And that is just what many
today are doing! They are sacrificing their children to the gods of
materialism, greed and false traditions.
The Christmas Tree
That
Christmas was originally a pagan festival is beyond all doubt. The time of
the year, and the ceremonies with which it is still celebrated, prove its
origin. In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of
heaven, was born at this very time, "about the time of the winter
solstice". The very name by which Christmas is popularly known among
ourselves Yule-day proves at once its pagan and Babylonian origin.
Yule is the Chaldee name for an "infant" or "little
child", and the 25th of December was called by our pagan Anglo-Saxon
ancestors "Yule-day" or the "Child's day" and the night
that preceded it "Mother-night", long before they came in contact
with Christianity... (pp. 93,94 Hislop).
The mother and child
symbolism preceded Mary and Jesus by thousands of years! Satan made sure
that he laid an effective counterfeit long before Jesus' time, knowing he
could use it to great advantage later, to dupe Christians into false worship
and undermine the truth of God.
The mother and child
philosophy started in Babel under the first human pontiff Nimrod and his
mother Semiramis. It continued in Egypt under different names Isis,
Osiris and Horus.
Nimrod was the great first
Deliverer, who claimed divinity for himself and supreme authority upon
earth. He set the precedent for the Roman Catholic primacy to perpetuate
this satanic theme. It is rank blasphemy!
Nimrod was born December 25.
And Yule day or Child's day is not just a nice thought for children. It is
rooted in pagan dualism and vice!
...it
commemorated, not merely the figurative birthday of the sun in the renewal
of its course, but the birthday of the grand Deliverer (Hislop, p. 94).
'Our' custom of using a tree
and all the paraphernalia of lights and trinkets which represent the sun and
the prosperity which the sun brings to the earth in the natural cycle, is
more than most conceive.
The
Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in pagan Rome
and pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm tree; in Rome it was the
fir; ... denoting the pagan Messiah... The Mother of Adonis, the Sun-God
and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have changed into a
tree, and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the
mother was a tree, the son must have been recognised as the "Man of the
branch". And this entirely accounts for the putting of the Yule log into the
fire on Christmas eve, and the appearance of the Christmas tree the next
morning
(Hislop, p. 97).
What a clever counterfeit
Satan has foisted on Christians! Jesus is called the Branch in Bible
prophecy (Is 11:1), who springs from the root of Jesse (Is 11:10; Rom
15:12). But this Branch has been supplanted by Satan, who has erected an
evil despot as an idol in Jesus' place!
These customs have come to
Christians from the Gentiles, not from the true Church of Christ! Jeremiah
was moved to warn:
Thus says
the Lord: Do not learn the way of the Gentiles... for the customs of the
people are futile; for one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the
hands of the workman, with the ax. They decorate it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not topple. They are
upright like a palm tree, and they cannot speak... (Jer 10:2-5, NKJV).
The allusion here to the
forerunner of the Christmas tree ought to be clear. But stubborn souls who
don't want to dispense with Christmas customs argue vehemently that it does
not apply to the Christmas tree because we don't bow down and worship it
today like the ancient pagans did.
Oh, don't we? What's it doing
on the platforms of our churches, then? Why is it associated with 'worship'
of Jesus Christ and His supposed birthday?
If you are worshipping Jesus
Christ, why do you need a tree to remind you of Him. God tells us not to
worship Him the way the pagans worshipped their gods (Deut 12:32). Nor are
we to use anything physical as an idol (Deut 5:8,9), even if we might think
it is an aid to worship. It actually detracts from true worship, which is in
spirit (Jn 4:24).
But, God knows what is in
people's hearts. They and even a majority of Christians would rather
enjoy a time of pagan festivity than do what He says in His Word. He
predicted this apostasy would occur (Deut 4:25-28; 2 Thes 2:3-12).
The question you must ask
yourself is: Should I go along with the majority? Let the Word of God
answer:
Do not
follow the crowd in doing wrong (Ex 23:2).
Christmas is Spiritually Adulterous
As a Christian you might
think you are worshipping the only true God. You accept the Bible as His
Word even though you may not understand it all, or have complete
knowledge of all it contains and you have accepted Jesus as your Saviour.
But don't be deceived. Just because you think you worship one God doesn't
mean your worship is not tainted or compromised.
The Babylonians worshipped
one god Baal, the sun god!
It was an
essential principle of the Babylonian system, that the Sun or Baal was the
one only God. (Hislop, p. 96).
That Babylonian system has
come on down to us through customs which the false Church in Rome
perpetuated at the expense of thousands of Christian martyrs who refused to
compromise with truth!
No wonder Jesus shocked John
when He revealed this abominable 'woman' as "drunk with the blood of
the saints" (Rev 17:6). She appears Christian, but is not. She is
Babylon, clothed with deceptive garb (Rev 17:5). She has filled the
'Christian' world with her deceptions (Rev 17:2; 18:3).
True and
just are His [God's] judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who
corrupted the earth by her adulteries (Rev 19:2). Come out of her, My
people... (18:4).
As a child of God, you are
called to be part of the Bride of Christ. He wants you to be pure, untainted
by the sins of the world which include idolatrous customs we have
inherited. If you accept pagan customs and call them Christian, how can He
accept you as part of His Bride (unless, of course, you are ignorant, which
you and I were at one time)? By approving of pagan traditions you are
committing spiritual adultery!
That is one reason God hates
Christmas!
Origin of Hogmanay
In Scotland, the turn of the
year is marked with a celebration somewhat different. It is called Hogmanay.
Its origin is also Babylonian! Here's how it began:
Among the
Sabeans of Arabia, who regarded the moon, and not the sun, as the visible
symbol of the favourite object of their idolatry, the same period was
observed as the birth festival. Thus we read in Stanley's Sabean
Philosophy: "On the 24th of the tenth month," that is
December, according to our reckoning, "the Arabians celebrated the
BIRTHDAY OF THE LORD that is, of the Moon." The Lord Moon was the
great object of Arabian worship, and that Lord Moon, according to them was
born on the 24th of December, which clearly shows that the birth
which they celebrated had no necessary connection with the course of the
sun (Hislop, p. 94).
Hislop further points out
that Christmas day among the ancient Saxons was celebrated in honour of the
birth of the Lord of heaven, but that they regarded the sun as a female
divinity and the moon as male. So, December 25 celebrated the Lord Moon's
birth day, just as the Arabians observed December 24 for that occasion.
The name of
Lord Moon in the East seems to have been Meni, for this appears the
most natural interpretation of the Divine statement in Isaiah 65:11,
"But ye are they that forsake my holy mountain, that prepare a temple
for Gad, and that furnish the drink offering unto Meni". There is
reason to believe that Gad refers to the sun god, and that Meni in like
manner designates the moon divinity. Meni, or Manai, signifies "The
Numberer", and it is by the changes of the moon that the months are
numbered: Psalm 104:19, "He appointed the moon for
seasons..." The name of "The Man of the Moon", or the god
who presided over that luminary among the Saxons, was Manι, as given in
the "Edda", and Mani, in the "Voluspa". That it was
the birth of the "Lord Moon" that was celebrated among our
ancestors at Christmas, we have remarkable evidence in the name that is
still given in the lowlands of Scotland to the feast on the last day of
the year, which seems to be a remnant of the old birth festival for the
cakes then made are called Nur-cakes, or Birth-cakes. That name is Hogmanay.
"Hog-Manai" in Chaldee signifies "The feast of the Numberer";
in other words, The festival of Deus Lunus, or the Man [god] of the Moon
(Hislop,
pp. 94,95).
Deception of The Snake!
I mentioned earlier about the
symbolism of the Yule log and the Christmas tree: ...the putting
of the Yule log into the fire on Christmas eve, and the appearance of the
Christmas tree the next morning which symbolised the dying on
'Mother night' and rebirth of the seed of the woman out of the fire the next
day as the 'Branch of God'. The pagans thought: This is the tree
which brings all divine gifts to men (Hislop, p. 97).
This tree was not Jesus. It
was Nimrod!
It must be
remembered that the divine child born at the winter solstice was born as a
new incarnation of the great god (after that god had been cut in pieces) [symbolised
by the Yule log] on purpose to revenge his death upon his murderers. Now
the great god... was... cut down almost to the ground. But the great
serpent, the symbol of the life-restoring Aesculapius, twists itself
around the dead stock, and lo, at its side up sprouts a young tree a
tree of an entirely different kind... even the palm tree, the well known
symbol of victory. The Christmas tree ...was generally at Rome a different
tree, even the fir; but the very same idea as was implied in the palm tree
was implied in the Christmas fir; for that covertly symbolised the new
born God as Baal-berith, "Lord of the Covenant"... he had risen
triumphant over them all. Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that
was observed at Rome as the day when the victorious god reappeared on
earth, was held at the Natalis invicti solis, "The birthday of the
unconquered Sun". Now the Yule log is the dead stock of Nimrod,
deified as the sun-god, but cut down by his enemies; the Christmas
tree is Nimrod 'redivivus' the slain god come to life again.
(Hislop,
pp. 97-98).
The cunning serpent has woven
his sly deceptions around harmless-looking customs and naive Christians have
got tangled up in them.
I hope you can see that
Christmas and new year celebrations are bound up in man-worship, not
God-worship. They originally deified the first human pontiff, Nimrod (Gen
10:9), and have continued in various forms ever since.
It is a clever satanic
counterfeit which has deceived millions that it honours the Son of God, but
it actually honours Satan!
God warns you to have nothing
to do with it! Come out! (Rev 18:4.)
Malcolm B Heap,
December 1996
Prophetic Words About Christmas
November 23,
1998: I speak to you today to maintain a pure conscience before Me. Walk in
truth and light. Refuse to fall into the fantasy of the days ahead. Some
would call these days "holidays" or holy days, but do not be
deceived into thinking there is anything holy about the world's traditions
and materialism. I say it is idolatry in its grandest form. Loose yourselves
from this bondage and idolatry, and seek Me with a whole heart. Have nothing
to do with self interest and greed; rather rise up in spiritual purity
before My face, and refuse to be distracted by what is unholy.
Marsha Burns
November 21,
1998: I am stirring hearts and bringing conviction and opportunity for
repentance. I am drawing My people into a place of greater obedience, more
strength and fervent love. The choices are there. The choice is yours. Will
you yield completely to My call? Will you say yes to My proposal? Will you
be My bride? The choice is yours and yours alone. Are you willing to forsake
all and yield to My purposes? Come and be one with Me in heart and purpose.
Come away with Me, My beloved.
Marsha Burns
Bill and Marsha
Burns, FAITH TABERNACLE
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