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What is the opinion of the upcoming holiday season?
Holy or evil? Why?
I will reserve the results of my study on the subject till after some other ADVENTISTS weigh in.
Suffice it to say that this issue was one that caused me to stop attending our local SDA church.
Suffice it to say that this issue was one that caused me to stop attending our local SDA church.
But if you believe you have the truth, you need to stay in your local church as long as possible.
I also agree that staying in as a witness and a light is the best course...
However, my wife and I were very new Adventists (about a year in) and had just been baptized. (I was baptized as a boy through the Baptist faith but slid far away from God)
The apostasy that we were seeing wasn't condusive to our growth as babes in the faith so I made the decision to take us out of it. We met with a group online that has been a real blessing to us and our growth and has caused me to do my own research and study as opposed to the traditional go and listen to the preacher once a week.
I have been convicted that there is a need to reach out to fellow adventists to bring them back to a right understanding of the pioneer message, the charts of 1843 and 1850, including the 2520 and the vital importance of understanding the millerite time period of 1840-1844 as sister White has said that the events associated with this time period will be repeated to the very letter in the end times.
Which online group is it?
Here is what I think.
Many of the SDAs know (I don't know the percentage) Christmas is not the birthday of Christ. Some know it has a pagan root (winter solstice).
Our family does not celebrate it as a religious holiday. For some years we had nothing at all for it. But now we have two young children. So it's hard to plot it out completely. We have some gifts for the children and their friends. So we treat it like Thanksgiving, but avoid Santa and the commercial part of it.
Ellen White gave a balanced view on it. She linked all the commercialism and the celebration to idolatry while in the meantime suggested it's a good time to give children gifts to learn about Jesus. She also wrote that it's not a sin to have a Christmas tree at home.
So it's an sensitive issue to deal with if you have children at home. But I'm totally against having Christmas tree and Christmas service/celebration at the church.
"Shall We Have a Christmas Tree?"--God would be well pleased if on Christmas each church would have a Christmas tree on which shall be hung offerings, great and small, for these houses of worship. Letters of inquiry have come to us asking, Shall we have a Christmas tree? Will it not be like the world? We answer, You can make it like the world if you have a disposition to do so, or you can make it as unlike the world as possible. There is no particular sin in selecting a fragrant evergreen and placing it in our churches, but the sin lies in the motive which prompts to action and the use which is made of the gifts placed upon the tree. {AH 482.1}
The tree may be as tall and its branches as wide as shall best suit the occasion; but let its boughs be laden with the golden and silver fruit of your beneficence, and present this to Him as your Christmas gift. Let your donations be sanctified by prayer.
THE MEANING OF CHRIST-MASS
MEANS SACRIFICING CHRIST
NOT ABOUT HIS BIRTH
They tell us that it is the season to be jolly. It is a time of ornaments, red and green decorations, silver bells, holly, mistletoe and colored lights. It is also a time of department store Santas calling out their universal mantra, "Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas." Nearly all of the realm of "Christianity" join in and repeat this same greeting, "Merry Christmas!"
Although we hear these words constantly as they resonate millions of times throughout the land, almost nobody understands what they are really saying. It is the purpose of this tract to take the words, "Merry Christmas" and examine the true meaning and essence of those words.
A true Christian would want to examine everything they say, because Jesus said in Matthew 12:36-37, "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." We will now set aside all of the customs, glitter and traditions of Christmas, which were taken from pagan witchcraft and popularized by the Roman Catholic Church, and we will focus on the true meaning of the words, "Merry Christmas!"
The word "Merry" is simple to define. It unquestionably means to be happy, joyful and light-hearted. The word "merry" fits into the ambience of laughter and frivolity. This word "merry" by itself is innocent and innocuous enough, but as we will now see, it becomes heinously blasphemous when used with the word "Christmas."
Here let it be noted that most people think that the word, "Christmas" means "the birth of Christ." By definition, it means "death of Christ", and I will prove it by using the World Book Encyclopedia, the Catholic Encyclopedia, and a book entitled, The Mass In Slow Motion.
If you are an honest, sincere and discerning Christian, please read on; if not, you might as well stop right here.
The World Book Encyclopedia defines "Christmas" as follows: "The word Christmas comes from "Cristes Maesse", an early English phrase that means "Mass of Christ." (1) It is interesting to note that the word "Mass", as used by the Roman Catholics, has traditionally been rejected by the so-called Protestants, such as Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Pentecostals and so on. The word "Mass" is strictly a Catholic word and thus, so is "Christ-Mass."
It would stand to reason, that since all of these denominations love and embrace "Christ-Mass", that December 25th is the great homecoming day, when all of the Protestants become Catholic for a day. It would seem that all of the so-called "wayward daughters" of the Romish church return to their mother, the scarlet harlot. Thus, all of the so-called Protestant churches could sing to the Pope that popular song "I'll be home for Christmas."
As previously stated, the word "Mass" in religious usage means a "death sacrifice." The impact of this fact is horrifying and shocking; for when the millions of people are saying, "Merry Christmas", they are literally saying "Merry death of Christ!"
Furthermore, when the fat man in the red suit laughs boisterously and says, "Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas", he is mocking and laughing at the suffering and bleeding Saviour, who died for our sins. He does this while parents place their little children into his waiting arms to hear his false promises of gifts that he says he will give them. Consider what you are saying when you say "Merry Christmas."
What is so amusing about our Saviour's painful death? What is so funny? Why is Santa laughing? Why are you going along with it? Your words do count and Satan knows it. Yes, the word "Mass" does mean "death sacrifice", and to cement that fact, we will consider the definition of the inventors of the religious application of the word "Mass." I am looking at page 537 of the Catholic Encyclopedia, which says, "In the Christian law, the supreme sacrifice is that of the Mass." It goes on to say, "The supreme act of worship consists essentially in an offering of a worthy victim to God, the offering made by a proper person, as a priest, the destruction of the victim." (2)
Please note carefully the word, "victim" of the Mass. The Latin word for victim is "Hostia" from which the word "host" is derived. The Mass, by definition of those who coined the word, is a sacrifice involving a victim. There is no other meaning for the word "Mass" or "Christ-Mass." On page 110 of a book entitled "The Mass In Slow Motion", we find the following words: "It is only with the consecration that the sacrifice of the Mass is achieved. I have represented the Mass to you, more than once, as a kind of ritual dance." (3)
In essence, the Mass is the ceremonial slaying of Jesus Christ over and over again, followed by the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood. The Mass is the death sacrifice, and the "Host" is the victim. This is official Roman Catholic doctrine, and "Christmas" is a word that they invented. Again, I ask, what is so merry about the pain, bleeding, suffering and death of Jesus Christ? Satan has done quite a job of getting millions of "Christians" to blaspheme. What a deceiver he is.
Now you know the true meaning of the word "Christmas" or Mass of Christ. There is much more to know about this pagan holiday, evidence that Jesus was not born on December 25th, and that Christmas is not only a lie, but is actually a witches' sabbat called "Yule" in clever disguise. We urge you to be like the Bereans and search this most important truth out for yourselves.
Mark 7: 7-9, 13
Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.
And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
Acknowledgements:
01. World Book Encyclopedia, vol.3, p. 408, 1986 ed., World Book Inc., Chicago, IL
02. The Catholic Encyclopedia, R.C. Broderick, 1975 ed., Nihil Obstat, Richard J. Sklba, Censor Librorum. Imprimatur, Archbishop William E. Cousins, Milwaukee, WI.
03. The Mass In Slow Motion, Ronald Knox, 1948, Sheed & Ward, Inc., New York, NY. Nihil Obstat, E.C. Messenger, Censor Deputatus. Imprimatur, E. Morrogh Bernard, Vic. Gen.
Jeremiah 10:2-4
Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
For the customs of the people are vain: for one 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.
So what "day" was Jesus born? I think it would behoove you to show what day Jesus was born to prove your case that it's not His birthday. That's the reason for the season, not some guy dressed in a Santa suit. It is about the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What's wrong with celebrating His birthday?What is the opinion of the upcoming holiday season?
Holy or evil? Why?
I will reserve the results of my study on the subject till after some other ADVENTISTS weigh in.
Suffice it to say that this issue was one that caused me to stop attending our local SDA church.
Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:22-24)
Where's yours?
It's too bad that you can only do what you are commanded to do.
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