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NASB | Jeremiah 10:1 Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Jeremiah 10:1 Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. |
Subject: Christmas |
Bible Note: I really did agree with you, Tim. I agreed with you completely. The other comments were concerning other people, who give their reasons for choosing to celebrate Christmas. As I recall, you did not give any reason. You said you do it because you have not been convinced by Scripture that God forbids it. The comments were not made with any but a slim-chance hope of convincing anybody. The chances would be almost the same, I suppose, as trying to change the names of the days of the week. Better to shrug it off or else to rationalize the use of Sunday and Moonday and the others. It is too difficult to change things like that, and no one is convinced it’s worth the effort. We are stuck with some things and we have to live with them. Some things we choose to keep. I would prefer not to say Sunday, but sometimes I do. I would prefer not to celebrate Christmas, and I don’t. There have been massive, concerted efforts in the past to stamp out Christmas, and they have failed. I do not expect that there will be any mass conversions now. Maybe one out of a thousand reading this thread will change their mind. The main reason for my participation here is to comment on the reasons that people give. It seems to me that the reasons are really one or more of these: 1. God said to do it. 2. I thought of it myself. 3. I am going along with what I see others doing. This will sting the ego, but the answer, in every case, is number 3. Someone has quoted Jeremiah: “Thus saith the LORD, ‘Learn not the way of the heathen’”. That is God speaking. Does anyone ask, “Where did I learn about the Christmas?” Does it matter if it was in fact from the pagans? The fact is it does not matter. We will not change. They said to Jeremiah, “As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth”. Jeremiah confesses, “O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps”. There are forces and pressures, some spiritual, some social, that shape our behavior, and some of us feel called to expose them. It does not matter that some say, “Who are you to judge?” and “Do you think you are better?”. We will simply say, “Thus saith the Lord”. The barbs will sting and we will say like Jeremiah, “Woe is me for my hurt! My wound is grievous. But I said, ‘Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it’”. Thus saith the LORD, “Learn not the way of the heathen”. |