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WHOSE BIRTHDAY IS ON THE 25TH?

Does it matter when something good and noble and holy had its birth in an unsavory past? Here in the United States it makes big news when it leaks out that a political candidate had been involved in some questionable activity. A large denomination tries to cover up in its archives the fact that a founder was a criminal or that there was a deception involved in the early days.

And some people say, "So what? That's in the past. Mr. So-and-So is running for office NOW. What he was 30 years ago isn't relevant." Others, on the other hand, stoutly insist that the past DOES matter, because it provides a clue to future possibilities, for good or for ill.

And today we want to talk about a national holiday, in fact, a WORLDWIDE holiday
called Christmas. By now, you've probably taken all the wrapping paper and trash bags out to the garage; some of the relatives have left and the tree needs to be taken down sometime this week. But this amazing, hectic, wonderful, commercial, spiritual and UN-spiritual day, Christmas, has a very interesting beginning.

I posed a question yesterday and it went like this: Why does God PERMIT His people to celebrate Christmas? With all the problems that this holiday has, with all the selfishness and salesmanship tied into this unique day, why hasn't God directed His people AWAY from paying any mind to it?

Today we have a story to consider that comes to us both out of the Bible and also from the history books. It's a story about pagan rituals and one of the oldest counterfeit forms of worship known on this planet.

Probably a number of you have read or studied something about the ancient worship of the sun. Have you ever heard any of these names for sun-gods? Ra, Osiris, Baal, Shamas, Adoni, Molech, Tammuz, Baal-peor, Bel, Mithra, Appollo, Bacchus, Hercules, Ashtoreth, Chemosh, Dagon, Diana, Jupiter, Juno, Venus, Saturn, and Ishtar. All of these were SUN-gods; you recognize that the name Ishtar very easily takes us to the word "Easter."

Sun worship always involved male and female deities — and for an obvious reason. Because the warm rays of the sun brought new life in the springtime, with the cold earth springing forth in fruitfulness, the sun was considered the ultimate power of reproduction. And sun-worship involved the deification of this principle of reproduction in both nature AND in man.

Here's a quote from one historian:

"As the sun was the great god, the supreme lord, and as he exerted his most glorious powers in reproduction, it was held to be the most acceptable worship for his devotees so to employ themselves and THEIR powers. Consequently prostitution was one chief characteristic of sun-worship wherever found. The sacrifice of virginity was the most acceptable offering that ever could be made in the worship of the sun."
It's very interesting, but this is just the start. In your Bible, Genesis chapter 10, you can read about a great-grandson of Noah; his name was Nimrod. The Bible calls him a mighty warrior on the earth, a mighty hunter before the Lord. In verses 10-12, it says:

"The first centers of his kingdom were BABYLON, Erech, Akkad and Calneh, in Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Ninevah, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, and Resen."
So this Nimrod, mighty warrior and hunter and builder — a very ambitious man — was the driving force behind the Tower of Babel, or Babylon, as your Bible's text notes will indicate.

That Tower of Babel, as we read, was a HUMAN attempt to circumvent God, to provide a manmade protection from a future flood. It was a counterfeit kingdom; in fact, the word "Babylon" indicates the devil's counterfeit programs right through the entire Bible and into the Book of Revelation. Babylon and opposition to God go together from one end of the Bible to the other.

Now Nimrod had a wife, we read in history books. Her name was Semiramis, and she was the first deified queen of the city of Babylon. Nimrod, her husband, was the first deified king; the people considered him a god. When he died, all the people mourned . . . AND worshiped. They worshiped all the more when Semiramis told them that her husband, Nimrod, had become the sun-god and that his spirit was still living in the sun. To further elevate her OWN position, she proclaimed that she was the queen of heaven and that her spirit was of the moon, and that when SHE died, she would dwell in the moon even as her late husband was already in the sun.

But hold on for a little more. Every December, as the weather turned cold, and as the sun reached its lowest dip on the horizon on the 21st of the month, everyone noticed that very shortly after this, their sun-god began to RETURN. After his long journey away from them, the twenty-FIFTH of the month seemed to indicate his return! This must be the birthday of the sun, they decided. In fact, the idea of a god taking a long journey and then returning is something we can even read the prophet Elijah referring to in the book of First Kings 18, where he teased the prophets of the sun-god Baal. Do you remember? "Hey, cry a little bit louder. Maybe your god's gone on a long journey somewhere, or he's asleep and you have to wake him up."

So December 25, thousands of years before the birth of Christ, was already a pagan holiday, with all the trappings and the illicit celebrations of reproductive powers in men and in women.

Now one final footnote. Semiramis never married again after the death of Nimrod. How could the so-called queen of heaven marry an ordinary man. But some years later she was suddenly pregnant. How had this happened? The gossip sheets began rolling off the presses . . . until she announced that Nimrod, the god dwelling in the sun, had mysteriously moved upon her and caused her to be with child. She had a baby boy born on . . . you guessed it, the 25th of December. His name was Tammuz, and you can read about Tammuz — just a brief reference — in Ezekiel chapter eight. The queen of heaven is described, again, just briefly, in Jeremiah 7 and 44; the rest comes to us from the history books.

So the virgin birth was counterfeited by God's enemy. The 25th of December was a counterfeit holiday coming straight from the heart of pagan and prostituted sun-worship. And this Tammuz, the son of the sun-god, became a great hero to pagan societies. The people took the letter Tau — T — and made it an emblem of sun-worship. They wore little T's around their necks; they offered up sacrifices on big T's made of wood; they burned their enemies at the stake on those big T's. And many centuries later, when the REAL Son of God was born, NOT on the 25th of December, but TRULY born of a virgin, He lived and then was crucified on a huge wooden cross, a T, a carved tribute to the illegitimate son of the sun-god.

Well, friend, it's an unbelievable story and it makes you want to weep. Especially as we discover how in the early Christian church, in the first centuries after the Resurrection, pagan practices so quickly crept into that virgin church. The day of the Sun was given prominence. Easter from Ishtar. Eggs and rabbits, both symbols of fertility, found a place of honor in the Christian Church. And yes, the 25th of December was borrowed directly from the licentious temples of pagan sun-worship and made into Christmas — Christ's mass — in honor of the birth of the Savior.

So we ask ourselves today: Does it matter? So Christmas came from a shady past; it had a kind of counterfeit beginning. Does it matter today?

As I mentioned yesterday and today, friend, God hasn't outlawed Christmas. Jeannie and I celebrated yesterday, as I'm sure you did as well. And I believe as long as we keep our focus on the birth of Jesus Christ, the REAL Son of God, that God can protect us. But we do have two challenges today.

First of all . . . is to keep that focus. How easy it is to forget Christ at Christmas! We're busy and we're frantic and we have office parties and a lot to attend to in the month of December. And perhaps you've found yourself on the 18th, TODAY, wondering wearily to yourself: "Whatever happened to the Christ Child? Somehow in all the rush, I lost Him. In all the noise and the neon, I forgot to renew my commitment to Him; I forgot to give my best gifts to Him."

Friend, if that happens, then the devil has won the very same victory he aimed for when he counterfeited December 25 with his evil little Nimrod Campaign. Back in those pagan years, millions were swept away from worshiping the true God; if you and I forget to REMEMBER Jesus on the 25th of December, well, the devil has won again.

My second point is this. Let's not forget that there IS an enemy out there. Some ministries don't preach much about Satan and his false kingdom anymore, but here at The Voice of Prophecy, we believe that Lucifer is a very real being and that his counterfeits are something we need to know about. For every pure, holy creation of our heavenly Father, the prince of darkness has a clever substitute. And he'll seduce us away with something blatant or something subtle; to him, it doesn't matter which. You can bow down to a sun-god or a money god; the devil is crouched down hiding behind both of them.

So today, friend, look to Jesus. Look beyond the sun to the REAL God who created the sun! And just 4 days from now, when Christmas 2004 comes to us, make it a CHRISTIAN Christmas like you've never celebrated before.