Godsloveandlaw's Blog

Now that another Christmas has come and gone, we thought it would be good to reflect upon this season and how, we as present truth believers, should view it from Inspiration’s point of view. Due to some circumstances that occurred, we saw the necessity to clarify some important aspects of this season.

Let’s face it, Christmas has caused a great deal of happiness, frustration, envy, bitterness, disgust and a myriad of other human feelings among us as Christians.Many are no doubt aware that it is most likely not Christ’s birthday, yet, the season and Christ is brought up through out the world for approximately 30 -45 days.

We basically see 4 categories of SDA views as to how we react to the season known as Christmas.

1) SDA worldlies. These are just as Inspiration said “steadily retreating back to Egypt”(Testimonies vol. 5, p.217) And they indulge in this season just as if they were not in the least a “peculiar people” (1 Peter 2.9).

SOP describes them– “By the world the holidays are spent in frivolity and extravagance, gluttony and display…. Thousands of dollars will be worse than thrown away upon the coming Christmas and New Year’s in needless indulgences.” (AH, p.480)

2) SDA Lukewarms. This probably is by far the majority. They are careful not to show any outward display of too much “Christmasy” things yet if they see a brother or sister with their house all light up or the many worldly presents set neatly under the tree–they wink and smile. Santa and reindeer post cards may even be sent. They do not correct their brethren in the least. These are they who, again, Inspiration describes–

“If wrongs are apparent among His people, and if the servants of God pass on indifferent to them, they virtually sustain and justify the sinner, and are alike guilty and will just as surely receive the displeasure of God; for they will be made responsible for the sins of the guilty. In vision I have been pointed to many instances where the displeasure of God has been incurred by a neglect on the part of His servants to deal with the wrongs and sins existing among them. Those who have excused these wrongs have been thought by the people to be very amiable and lovely in disposition, simply because they shunned to discharge a plain Scriptural duty. The task was not agreeable to their feelings; therefore they avoided it.” (Testimonies, vol. 3, p.266)

3) SDA Present Truthers and haters of Christmas.  These are perhaps the ones most confused. While the above two groups carry on in their ignorance, not knowing present truth for the most part, these know the Elijah message well, yet have taken a “Pharisaical” position against any Christmas celebration and even the name “Christmas” is an abomination to them. They are in real jeopardy of neglecting what God’s word says —

“..but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” (Esp. 4:15-16)

4) SDA  Present Truthers who stay in the middle of the road.   These as we will attempt to point out should be the ones who we should desire to be. Based on the “whole” word of the Truth we shall see that we cannot pit our two last prophets against each other, rather the last message of Elijah gives us advice–

“Inspiration, moreover, always brings the messengers of God into perfect harmony, never into division…we see that God not only never delegates one agent to alter, to reset, or to countermand the message with which He has charged another agent without His first making the matter known to both..” (Answerer, vol. 1, Q-3)

So the Pharisaic SDA’s should understand that we cannot use brother Houteff’s words on Christmas and throw out Ellen White’s or vice versa. We must attempt, upon prayer, to understand the right attitude to take in regards to Christmas by studying BOTH to see the clear light.

Yes, in Tract 13, brother Houteff goes into the folly of celebrating the heathen Christmas. But the balance from the two prophets is to be seen and can be if we do not neglect either.

The Lord impressed upon me to discuss this situation  because of what happened on a recent photo we posted. The following is the photo that went up —

Let me briefly explain the background of this picture and our motivation. As we got to church, soon my wife whispered  over to me that she would like to get a picture near the podium after services. I readily agreed.

After service we found one of the deaconesses who was standing up front and asked her to take a picture of us. She did and we thanked her for her help. Later when we got home my wife downloaded it to our computer. I reviewed it with her and agreed it came out satisfactorily.

Later, we thought it would be a good idea to share it on Facebook along with a note to say “thanks” to all our FB friends and relatives for being our FB acquaintances. More importantly it also gave us an opportunity to encourage all of them to strive to make it to the kingdom. I said ” I want to see each and every one of you in the upcoming kingdom.”

But, later after we took the picture, I did notice that unbeknownst to me at the time, we were standing in front of a big sign on the wall, as well as the Christmas ornaments. This was a couple of weeks before Christmas.

The sign as shown said, “Thank you for celebrating Jesus with us today, Merry Christmas and may God bless you and your loved ones.”

By way of disclosure, my wife and I do not celebrate  Christmas due to the overwhelming pagan customs attached to it. We did a post showing more clearly our position in regards to Christmas.https://godsloveandlaw.com/2013/12/14/christmas-a-christians-perpective-2/

The photo generated a good reception (many likes and comments) but there was one comment that really struck me. I had been warned by the Spirit that this photo would bring some “anti- Christmas” responses, so it did not really surprise me. Actually I was expecting more of those type of comments than we got.

But let us look at this issue closely, especially in regards to the all too common “Pharisaical” attitude that some can have. First, let’s look at the comment made by a proclaimed present truth believer (by way of disclosure we know this woman and her profession in the Elijah message) .

“We don’t celebrate Christmas. That’s Idolatry. The reason to celebrate xmas is money and worshiping diablo. Idolatry worshiping.”

Now to be frank, if my wife and I had posted a picture of us under our Christmas tree with presents then I would certainly understand the public perception inference made by it.

But as I read this, frankly I was quite amazed .  First, this person assumed that because we had this picture taken with the words on the church wall and the decorations, we were “worshippers” of Christmas. She ignored our main point and that was to thank all our friends for being with us during the year and to encourage them to strive for the kingdom–all ignored!

As I mentioned to one of the comment responders who also rebuked her, this situation reminded me of the Pharisees, who would ever have their eyes open for any wrongdoing such as those who would walk one more foot than the long string measured out for the distance to walk to the temple. This would be considered “working” on the Sabbath.

She obviously knows very little about our views on Christmas, but preferred to shoot first and ask questions later. I strongly rebuked her in the comment section for such assumptions, claiming us as “idolaters”.

Let us take a look at the following picture–

Ah, Ellen White was a freemason and pagan worshiper, she has an obelisk on her grave! Yes brethren this is a perfect example how we as present truth believers can falsely fail to see the whole picture and make foolish assumptions. If one was to take a picture standing on this site, and post it to your fellow believers, would some also accuse them of worshiping freemasonry?

Ok let us look at some SOP quotes regarding Christmas.

“..it is our privilege to depart from the customs and practices of this degenerate age; and instead of expending means merely for the gratification of the appetite or for needless ornaments or articles of clothing, we may make the coming holidays an occasion in which to honor and glorify God. ” (AH, p.480)

What a powerful statement! What we can see is that this so-called “pagan festival” can be turned around! That’s right, it can be “an occasion in which to honor and glorify God.” A worthy example is the set up of the nativity set in the living room, instead of the tree. This was shown with the post we did about the Smith family.

They turned this whole season around from the lights to the music to the presents. God was indeed glorified! If we have children , this can certainly be a “God honoring” inspired alternative.

“Now, brethren, let us on Christmas make special efforts to come before the Lord with gifts and grateful offerings for the gift of Jesus Christ as a Redeemer to the world. Let nothing now be spent needlessly, but let every penny that can be spared be put out to the exchangers. Satan has had his way in managing these occasions to suit himself. Now let us turn the current heavenward instead of earthward.” (Review and Herald, December 9, 1884)

“While there may be some who will turn these occasions into seasons of careless levity, and whose minds will not receive the divine impress, to other minds and characters these seasons will be highly beneficial. I am fully satisfied that innocent substitutes can be devised for many gatherings that demoralize.” (Review and Herald, Dec. 9, 1884)

This entry was posted on December 31, 2016 at 6:30 am and is filed under Brotherly love, Christmas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.