You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy. 

Sermon Text

“Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?”  Mark 12:24

I made an error  awhile back.  I realize that will shock many of you.  We were traveling to my son’s flag football game in a nearby small town.   We turned right rather than turning left and proceeded several miles in the wrong direction.  My wife had gotten on-line and printed out the directions; we diligently followed the direction but still ended up in making an error.  The consequences of having bad directions was for us to get a little lost and either be late to the flag football game or to miss it entirely.  I would argue that getting on-line and printing off the directions was probably a reasonable amount of effort given the potential consequences.

Now, consider if the potential consequence would have been…

Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. -Romans 1:25

Look upon the heathen nations; there you see the result of wisdom’s researches. In the time of Jesus Christ, you might have beheld the earth covered with the slime of pollution, a Sodom on a large scale-corrupt, filthy, depraved; indulging in vices which we dare not mention; revelling in lust too abominable even for our imagination to dwell upon for a moment. We find the men prostrating themselves before blocks of wood and stone, adoring ten thousand gods more vicious than themselves. We find, in fact, that reason wrote out her lines with a finger covered with blood and filth, and that she forever cut herself out from all her glory by the vile deeds she did. She would not worship God. She…

The Nativity of our Lord was not celebrated in the Early Church. In fact, the Early Church actually condemned the celebration of all birthdays as something the sinners do and what the pagans did. So why would we think that if they condemned all celebrations of birthdays that they would allow the celebration of the Lord’s Nativity? But even more so was the condemnation of paganism that was so tied to Lord’s Nativity when the Lord’s Nativity was placed on the pagan day of Saturnalia with all it’s rituals and celebratory acts.

Josephus, First Century Historian confirms that families did not celebrate birthdays:

“Nay, indeed, the law does not permit us to make festivals at the birth of our children, and thereby afford occasion of drinking to excess” (Josephus. Translated by W. Whiston. Against Apion, Book II, Chapter 26. Extracted from Josephus Complete Works, Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids (MI), 14th…