O you who love the Lord, hate evil! – Psalm 97:10 ~ There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. – Proverbs 14:12
Yes, it’s true. We Christians live in a world of paganism. Everywhere we look its pagan. Pagan! Pagan! Pagan! Our churches are modeled after pagan worship centers, so we are told. Our days of the week are named after pagan gods! Some say worship on Sunday is pagan! And our dollar bill…GASP!!!…
So what? That’s right, I asked, so what? Maybe knowing that truth puts most Christians at ease about celebrating X Mass. “Paganism is hard to avoid.” Or they will say, “See, you can christianize paganism! Look at the church structure!” Well…not so fast, o clever one!
No. No you can’t christianize unredeemable paganism. Yes, we use, or practice, the things of pagan origin all of the time. But that pertains to worldly use for our benefit or as a person-to-person use. Many things we believe have a pagan origin didn’t just happen to be only for pagan worship after all. The practice simply existed before the time of Nimrod, where all pagan religions came from. Nevertheless, in our man to God worship we must not adopt the ways of the heathen to worship Him with. He hates it. He did not ordain it. It is Cain worship, i.e., man-made. God has the only right to sanction the worship of Himself and to call days “holy.” Not us. Some say that Jeremiah 10 has nothing whatsoever to do with X Mass trees. Fine. You can believe that. Some say that Deuteronomy 12:29-32 is not speaking about our modern-day X Mass trees and such other rituals and traditions. Fine. You can believe that way, too.
Here’s the problem: If you are decorating your homes in the same manner as the Wiccans then you are yoking with the idolatrous unbelievers. You are not being separate from them. How are you being holy as God is holy in this X Mass-Saturnalia “holy” day observance? You are not abstaining from even the appearance of evil! Are you a Christian or a Wiccan? Sure, today many would say you are a Christian but not the unbelievers. They don’t know the difference, nor do they care. It’s about Santa for them, no matter their age. The Wiccans are either laughing at you for doing as they do, or they are angry at you for hijacking their holy day and putting your false god (yes, its lower-case “g” to them) in the place of their true sun-god, unless they believe there is no difference between the two. But they should know it! Christians aren’t helping them in the matter with their copy-cat decor. Where are we different, then, by our appearance?
If you cling to your X Mass to the point of being rude or inconsiderate to your fellow Christians who do not celebrate it, then you are committing idolatry and brotherly love is not in you. If you use Scriptures to validate your celebration but say that the incarnation story is the “Christmas story” then you have no idea what the Christ Mass truly is about, and you are inadvertently sinning against God and calling the holy by an unholy name. Plus! You are misinterpreting the Scriptures you are using! If you are celebrating X Mass despite knowing its pagan roots (or similarity to the Wiccan’s “holy” day) then you are willfully sinning against God. It’s not just sinning, but willfully sinning. If you are celebrating X Mass for the kids’ sake, or for fear of what others might say, then you are not worthy of Jesus. He said it, I didn’t:
Matthew 10:36-38, “And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me.”
See also Bible Hub’s commentary and other like verses here.
It’s time to repent of Christo-paganism.
A refutation of the Roman Catholic’s Lord’s Supper and the exposure of its practice of idolatry.
He talks of mens’ traditions in this sermon. How we, as humans, can very well be wrong. And so can traditions be outside scriptural authority even if everyone, including the Christian churches, are doing it.
In fact, salvation cannot happen apart from repentance!
Question: “What is repentance and is it necessary for salvation?”
Answer: Many understand the term repentance (from the Greek word metanoia) to mean “turning from sin.” This is not the biblical definition of repentance. In the Bible, the word repent means “to change one’s mind.” The Bible also tells us that true repentance will result in a change of actions (Luke 3:8-14; Acts 3:19). Acts 26:20 declares, “I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.” The full biblical definition of repentance is a change of mind that results in a change of action.
read more here…
To repent, in relation to salvation, is to change your mind in regard to Jesus Christ.
If repentance wasn’t necessary for salvation, why then did Jesus command that repentance be preached to all nations? (Luke 24:47)?
Scripture verses on repentance
Roy B. Zuck writes:
Repentance is included in believing. Faith and repentance are like two sides of a coin. Genuine faith includes repentance, and genuine repentance includes faith. The Greek word for repentance (metanoia) means to change one’s mind. But to change one’s mind about what? About sin, about one’s adequacy to save himself, about Christ as the only way of salvation, the only One who can make a person righteous (“Kindred Spirit,” a quarterly publication of Dallas Seminary, Summer 1989, p. 5).
Is repentance necessary for salvation? – Bible.org
Another good article, The Gift of Repentance says:
Nevertheless, many people have succumbed to the notion that God does not require repentance in order to become a Christian. With the desire to make conversion to Christ as easy as possible, many pastors have decided not even to mention sin or repentance in their sermons. I recently heard about a pastor of a “seeker-friendly” mega-church in Houston, Texas, who doesn’t preach about sin in his sermons but instead just wants to “give people a boost for the week.” Perhaps someone should remind him that the first word recorded from the lips of our Lord Jesus was “repent” (Matt. 4:17). It is not as if repentance is secondary to the Gospel message, it is at the very heart of understanding the Gospel message. We can’t possibly understand our need for God’s grace unless we understand our need to repent of our sins. In Mark 1:14–15 we read: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” Simply put, pastors and teachers are held to a more strict judgment (James 3:1), and if pastors do not preach repentance, then they themselves should repent.
The five types of Christians today:
Re-purposing pagan festivals for GOD’s use or your own use is evil, not according to me, but according to GOD. Does it matter which day you do things? Absolutely, if by doing so you are aligning with the patterns of this world, and in particular witches. How are Protestants any different than Catholics if they are recycling paganism for their own practice, and adopting pagan holidays for their own pleasure?
Source: PAGAN ASSIMILATION: Justified by ‘Answers in Genesis’?
The X Mass Blog 