Taking Jesus
Out of Christmas
I am typing this article up on 12/12/05. To those of you who
are in touch with your local and world news channels, I am sure
you have all heard by now how the secular forces in our country
are attacking the true meaning of Christmas.
These secular forces are trying to
literally replace the term "merry Christmas" with
"happy holidays." They are trying to re-name our
traditional Christmas tree as the "holiday tree." They
are trying to take out the baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph from the
manger scenes.
President Bush himself has taken out the term "merry
Christmas" from his yearly standard Christmas card that he
sends out in an attempt to try and be politically correct. Many
of our major department and retail stores have also replaced
the term "merry Christmas" with "happy holidays"
for fear of offending the minority in our country if they are
not Christians.
In the last poll I saw taken, it has been estimated that
80-85% of the people in our country still consider themselves
to be Christians. We are thus looking at 15-20% of our
population either being atheists, agnostics or of another faith
and religion.
In an effort to try and appease and not offend this small
minority, many in the political, academic and social fields are
literally trying to take out the true meaning of Christmas -
the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. And surprisingly, many liberal Christians are now in
this secular camp.
I have seen many of them on the local news and cable talk
shows. They are telling the rest of us conservative and
traditional-minded Christians that we are getting too upset
over nothing, that we should be willing to completely separate
Church from state, that we are too thin-skinned, and that we
need to go along with this secular agenda and take our faith
and belief right out of any kind of public arena.
As a result of this dark-side attack, many Christians have
risen up and have done battle with the secular forces trying to
remove Christianity from the public square. We have been
successful in some of the court battles, along with some of the
battles against some of the schools who are also trying to
remove every tenant of Christianity from their classes.
For those of you who do not know what the word
"secular" means, Webster's Dictionary describes it as
follows:
"Worldly, profane, heathen. Relating to worldly
things as distinguished from things relating to church and
religion; not sacred or religious, temporal."
Another term that you will often hear is the phrase
"secular humanism." Webster's describes this term as
follows:
"Humanism that systematically opposes the
introduction of religious ideas or standards into the
functions of the state, especially into public education. A
system of doctrines and practices that disregards or
rejects any form of religious faith and worship."
Remember this word. You will be seeing a lot more of this
demonic movement in the coming years.
Per the series of articles I have done on all the
end time events that will be
occurring before Jesus returns to us in His second coming,
one of the heavier signs that will be occurring will be the
moral disintegration of many people from all walks of
life.
The Bible tells us that in the latter days many people will
become lovers of self, boasters, proud, blasphemers,
unthankful, unholy, slanderers, brutal, without self-control,
headstrong and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
The Bible also tells us that some of these people will be
falling for "doctrines of demons."
There is no doubt in my mind that the secular agenda and
their basic philosophy is a demonic doctrine straight from the
pit of hell. Not only do they not believe in God - but they
want to try and take Him right out of any kind of public arena
- even if they are considered to be in the minority! You thus
have liberal judges, teachers, professors and politicians who
are doing everything they can to try and remove God from all of
the public areas of our life.
Many of our children have literally lost their faith in the
Lord by the time they have graduated from some of these liberal
and secular colleges. If that child has not been raised up with
a good, solid, Christian upbringing, he will become easy prey
for some of these demonic professors who are teaching them that
man does not need a God to answer too and that man and science
can eventually solve all the world's problems.
What you will find that is really funny in all of this is
that these secular forces are not attacking any of the other
false religious faiths and beliefs. They are not attacking any
of their holidays or trying to take any of their system of
beliefs out of our public arenas.
The reason for this is that all of these other false
religions and beliefs are not considered a threat to them and
their beliefs. Christianity is the only faith and religion that
will draw a major battle line in the sand and call out things
for the way they really are. Christianity is the only faith
that will call man as he really is - a sinner in need of a
Savior.
Secularists don't want to be told that they are all sinners.
They don't want to be told they need God's grace and mercy
through the blood of Jesus Christ in order to receive
redemption and a pardon for their sins and their sinful
states.
They don't want to be told what they can and cannot do. They
want total freedom of expression and they don't want to have to
answer to a real live living God for the moral decisions they
want to make with their own lives. In other words, they don't
want any moral absolutes dictating how they should be living in
this life.
This is why you are seeing such a fierce and relentless
attack on Christianity in every area they think they can get
away with. With us now approaching what I believe are the
latter years as told to us in the Bible, I am afraid that not
only is the secular movement not going to be going away, but it
will be getting stronger in the coming years, eventually
leading up to a real live Antichrist who will literally be
ruling this entire world for the last 7 years on this
earth.
If a real live Antichrist is really coming to rule this
entire world, then you can bet that an antichrist spirit will
start to invade the entire world to help prepare and set up for
his coming. And this is exactly what you are starting to see.
This is why some of these secular movements are getting much
more bold and much more aggressive with some of the things they
are now doing.
You now have an atheist who is trying to take out the term
"in God we trust" off our national currency. This man
has now filed the appropriate actions with the Supreme Court in
an attempt to try and do this. Many secular teachers are trying
to keep our children from reading and bringing their Bibles
into the schools. They are also trying to stop any type of
prayer groups from forming inside the schools.
The battle lines are now really being drawn between God's
people and the rest of the unbelieving world. Now, more than
ever, God will be looking for anointed soldiers to do battle
against some of this demonic secular activity that has now
launched a full scale attack against Christianity.
I'm sure many of you have felt a righteous wrath and
indignation rise up out of your spirits when you started seeing
and hearing about these latest attacks on Christmas and what
these secularists are now trying to do.
Per some of the articles we have in our Spiritual Warfare section, I
really believe God will be looking to raise up more anointed
soldiers in the coming years to go into combat for Him to
engage with the dark side forces that will only be getting
stronger and bolder in the coming years. Right now, God has
many good, solid, anointed soldiers in all of the major fields
and walks in our life.
We have good solid Christian men and women in the field of
politics, the court systems, the teaching professions and the
media. Some of these men and women have been instrumental in
getting a lot of this secular activity either defeated or at
least stalled to some degree.
But the battle is now on and it will only be intensifying in
the coming years. This latest attack against Christmas is just
another torpedo shot that we are going to have to deal with.
With this secular force being more in the minority rather than
the majority in this country, this means we can win some of
these battles if there is enough of a public outcry from the
believing majority. You can write, email or call your local
senators, congressmen, school officials and local stores and
chains to voice your opinions on all of these hot issues.
Look how far the homosexual movement has been able to
advance its cause and movement with all of their protests and
public outcries. They have literally been able to get their
entire movement accepted by many in our country as normal
acceptable behavior. The squeaky wheel still gets the grease -
and we can all do the same with some of the secular demonic
activity that has now invaded us right in the heart of where we
all live and work at.
To those Christians who consider themselves liberal, and who
are siding with some of these secular agendas in trying to
remove Jesus and everything that He stands for not only out of
Christmas, but out of the rest of the public areas of our lives
as well - I will leave you with two bone chilling verses from
our Bible that perfectly describes what is going on with all of
this.
Our Bible tells us that we have to be representatives and
ambassadors for Jesus, that we are to carry His light and
testimony, and that we are not to be ashamed to testify on His
behalf to the rest of the world.
President Bush had a major window to do all of this by
keeping the merry Christmas in his Christmas card, but he
buckled under the secular and political pressure to try and be
politically correct. As a result, he lost a golden opportunity
to show the rest of the world how strong his faith really was
in his Lord and Savior. This is why the Bible tells us that our
faith will be considered "dead" without any good works
to back it up.
As I stated at the top of this article, now, more than ever,
God is drawing a major battle line in the sand. He is asking
each and every Christian to take a stand and decide which side
of the line they are going to stand on.
You can either choose to totally dedicate and commit your
life and your way of living to God and Jesus, or you can choose
to take a stand with the world in general and walk and live
with how they want you to live in this life. This is why the
Lord has told us in His Word that we will literally become His
enemy if we choose the world and the ways of the world over Him
and how He wants us to live in this life.
To those liberal-minded Christians who think that God and
Jesus will not be offended if they work with some of these
secular forces in trying to remove Him from Christmas and some
of our other public arenas - look very, very closely at the
specific wording of these two verses that I will now leave you
with.
- "Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I
will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But
whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before
My Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 10:32-33)
- "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor
hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because
you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you
out of My mouth." (Revelation 3:15-16)
You can really tell by the way the Lord is wording these two
verses, that He is looking for intense, passionate, on-fire
people who will serve and follow Him. He is not looking for
weak, impotent, wishy-washy Christians who will cave into
political and social pressures to deny Him in any way, shape or
form.
The first verse perfectly describes what is going on
in our battle with the secular forces in this world. By
attempting to take out Jesus' name from the very holiday
that is attempting to celebrate His glorious birth into our
world in the first place - you are literally denying Him
before other men and the world in general!
And then look what it says next - that if you deny Him
before other men - then He will deny you before His Father in
heaven. Is Jesus implying a possible loss of your salvation if
you get too far and too friendly with the ways of the world by
the way He has worded this verse?
Jesus is definitely talking about Christians in this verse.
Jesus can't deny you unless He already knows you. And Jesus
can't know you unless you have already been saved through His
name. Judge for yourself if He is talking about a possible loss
of your salvation if He is going to deny you before His
Father.
The second verse then completes what I feel is really going
on in the spiritual realm for the battle of our souls. Jesus
says that He will then spew you out of His mouth if He finds
that you are too lukewarm in your personal relationship with
Him and in your actions with Him.
Again, I believe Jesus is referring direct to Christians in
this verse. Before Jesus can spew you out of His mouth - you
have to be in His mouth to begin with. And you can't get on the
inside of Jesus to be considered in His mouth unless you get
saved and born again.
The Bible tells us that once we receive the Holy Spirit at
the moment of our conversions with Jesus - that we now have
Jesus literally living on the inside of us since we now have
His Holy Spirit residing on the inside of us. It is by, in, and
through the Holy Spirit that Jesus now lives in us and we now
live in Him.
As a result of this inside connection to Jesus that we now
have established through the Holy Spirit, this second verse is
now telling us that it is possible to literally get spewed
right out of His mouth. Again, does this mean a possible
loss of your salvation
by the way He has worded this verse?
I have always felt that these two particular verses
from Scripture are two of the most bone-chilling verses in
all of the Bible for all Christians. God is not mincing any
words with what He is trying to convey in the meaning of
these two verses.
Any liberal Christian who is actively involved
in working with some of these secular forces in trying to
remove God and Jesus in any way from some of these public
areas is treading on extremely dangerous grounds with the
Lord.
The Bible tells us that we are not to take the light that we
already have in Jesus and attempt to hide it underneath the
table. Again, this whole scenario of trying to take God and
Jesus out of our public squares is doing exactly that. Every
Christian who is in an office or place that can do battle with
this kind of political and social pressure should be doing
everything they can to stand up and fight against this kind of
personal attack against our Lord and Savior.
Remember, God and Jesus will be judging you how well
you work for Them in this life - not how well you work for
the world.
If you cave into any of this political and
social pressure, God may end up judging you as someone who
ended up becoming more of a friend to the world than
becoming a true and loyal friend to Him. And the Bible has
already told us that those who end up becoming more
friendly with the world than to God and Jesus will be
considered to be Their enemy when all is finally said and
done.
Remember what Joshua has said - choose this day as to who
you will serve. Jesus has already told us that we cannot serve
both Him and mammon, which means wealth and riches. You cannot
serve both God and this world. You have to make a choice as to
whose side you are going to stand on.
If these kinds of hot issues do nothing else, at least it
causes all of us to examine where we are really at in our own
personal relationship with the Lord, and how far each of us
will go to defend our faith in Him. For some that are right in
the middle of these kinds of debates in their work environment,
these types of battles will be serving as real tests from our
Lord as to whose side they are going to choose to stand on.
Will you stand up and fight for your personal Lord and
Savior, or will you deny Him before other people and the world
in general by allowing these secular forces to try and remove
Him from every public area of our life?
 Click here for reprint information
Real
Meaning of the Crucifixion
Basics of
Salvation Through Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
Sinners
Prayer
Michael Bradley
Bible Teaching and
Bible Commentary,
Over 150 Free Bible
Lessons
Scripture taken from New King James
Version.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005-2008 by Michael Bradley.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
License.
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