Aaron – and the lesson of Christmas celebrations

Aaron – and the lesson of Christmas celebrations

No true believer would knowingly worship the true God from a basis of paganism. But without realizing it, could many mainstream Christians be worshiping God with more bits and pieces from paganism than they might remotely realize?

In Exodus 32 is the story of the Gold Calf that Israel made in the wilderness. This was a most painful and repugnant sin to YHWH, the living true God. You know the story of the Gold Calf - - but is it possible you’ve missed a crucial verse in the story that makes my point? When Moses’ brother – Aaron – agreed to fashion the golden calf and let Israel worship it, he thought he could lessen the sin and appease his Creator by – by doing what? What do you think? Do you remember the story? My main point is to get us to evaluate where WE could be doing the same thing. Could we be justifying a horrible sin in our life –and even in our worship – by doing the same thing Aaron did?

So we know he made the horrible gold calf. But he did something else that made that horrible sin far worse! So what did Aaron do and say regarding the gold calf that was so detestable to the Creator? Be turning in your Bible to Exodus 32 so you can read it with your own eyes in your own Bible.

Click on “Continue reading” to the right, to find out what was that terrible thing Aaron did. It’s what millions and millions of professing Christians are doing in fact right now.

Aaron thought he could lessen the harm, lessen the sin, if he could re-label this horrible pagan act of worshiping a man-made golden calf as their god, IF he would just get everyone to agree to re-label the worship services. He thought if he could just put God’s name on it, and announce to everyone that they were really just worshiping the true God as they worshipped a pagan golden idol, forbidden by YHVH – that everything would be OK.

Now put yourself in God’s shoes for a minute. If you had announced that you hated idolatry and having any other gods beside the one true God, would you suddenly be OK with idolatry if they put your name on it – or would you in fact be even angrier that they dared to put YOUR name on to pagan worship? YHVH was SO angry at Aaron that had Moses not interceded, God was ready to blot out his existence (Deuteronomy 9:20). You’ll see in a minute how millions of Christians are doing the very same thing Aaron did.

Exodus 32:1-10

“Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."

2 And Aaron said to them, "Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." 3 So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, "This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!"

5 So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, "Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD (YHVH)."

Did you catch here what Aaron did? He took the abominable worship of the abominable golden calf and relabeled it as worship for YHVH. He put YHVH’s name on to the gold calf and its worship! Read the rest of Exodus 32 yourself to see how God reacted to it all.

But people ask: “How could that be all that bad, as long as in our hearts God knows we are really worshiping HIM?”

Because it makes our Father even MORE angry when we put HIS name on to abominations from paganism. He SAYS so.

Why am I saying all this?

Because the world is ostensibly worshiping God and remembering the birth of Christ on Dec 25 – and since it’s about Christ (supposedly), we justify it and say it’s a wonderful thing, right?

NO! Because if you would take even just 10 minutes doing a Google or Yelp search about “Origins of Christmas celebrations” or even “PAGAN origins of Christmas” – you’ll very quickly read of the pagan origins for the Christmas tree, yule log, mistletoe, Santa Claus, Dec 25 as a date, Santa’s flying reindeer, plus all the other trappings of Christmas.

Deuteronomy 12:29-32

"When YHVH your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, 30 take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.' 31 You shall not worship YHVH (the LORD) your God in that way; for every abomination to YHVH which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.

32 "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.”

Remember how angry God got with Israel and their shepherd – Aaron – who led them into pagan calf worship and then had the gall to put YHVH’s name on to the worship services!

Is that ANY different from Christmas celebrations where we say it’s all about Christ’s birth – but the roots of ALL of it come straight from paganism? Again, you can prove that yourself very, very easily.

Do not take from this that I am against anyone being glad that Messiah was born of a virgin in a manger in Bethlehem. I’m not. I am SO happy my heavenly Father sent Yeshua to be born as a baby, live a perfect life and give himself to be my Savior – taking upon himself all my sins, all the wrath to be poured out against all my sins, and to justify me by faith in Him, and believing in him.

That’s all wonderful. Praise God for that.

But none of that happened on December 25! None of the true story and true timing of the birth of the Messiah has anything to do with the pagan trappings of Christmas. What happened was the early nominally “Christian” church learned quickly that they could “convert” pagan tribes more quickly if they let them keep their pagan ways and just re-label everything. Now it wasn’t just a Saturnalia tree, but a tree with Christ’s name on it. Now it wasn’t just the pagan orgies celebrating the return of the sun a few days after the shortest day in the year (Dec 21), but ostensibly celebrating the birth of the Christ child. But it’s all a lie – just like the story of Santa Claus. It’s all a lie.

The true story of the birth of Christ is quite different from the usual Christmas stories. Check this website for previous years where I do describe the TRUE story of Christ’s birth. Do a search on the search bar to the left of the home page on this site and write in -- “Christmas” and “birth of Christ”. The sermons will pop up. I know December 2007, 2012 and 2013 will yield various “Christmas-related” sermons.

For example, Scripture nowhere says there were just 3 kings. In fact it calls them wise men. And there’s no way Christ was born on Dec 25, but someone was. Find out, in those sermons I’ve given before. The wise men did not find Christ still in the manger – but in a house, by the time they found him. Check it out carefully with scripture.

My point is: Our Father wants us to worship Him in spirit and TRUTH – not with lies. John 4:23-24 says God is SEEKING such to worship Him – in truth. Santa is a lie. But we think it’s OK somehow to lie to our children about the source of the gifts.

Our Father does not want us worshiping Him with pagan trappings. Let’s be bold, and step up to obey him –and this year forget the Christmas tree and Christmas lights. Keep God’s true Sabbath and true holydays instead. Do what pleases God, not what pleases your friends and neighbors – if there’s a conflict with what God says pleases Him.

Now, having said that, I do not obnoxiously go around my neighborhood decrying their Christmas trappings. I don’t. I say my little bit on this website and move on. I accept people. Many simply don’t know about the truth of the pagan roots of much of what they do. But that’s why I never endorse on this website dates like Halloween, Easter, Christmas, New Year’s Day – all dates originating in paganism. Yes, even Easter. I love the true story of my Savior’s resurrection, but don’t mix it with the lies about rabbits and Easter eggs and pagan fertility goddesses. Plus the Bible says a lot more about a whole lot more topics. We all fail and stumble in our attempts to perfectly obey, but even as we accept Christ as our savior, we must ask him to live in us again so we walk as He walked, or the truth is not in us and we can’t say we know Him (read 1 John 2:3-6). Don’t get me wrong. I’ve often failed. But my heart is to let Christ take my sins and be my Savior and lead me to – over time – become more and more like Him. By His grace and merciful help, let’s walk with Him in a new way and put away our sins of our past.

            Let’s worship God in spirit and in truth. Don’t put his name on to pagan customs and think God’s OK with that. He’s not. He says He’s not (Deut 12:29-32 and many more).

The truth will set you free. We’re supposed to come out of Babylon (Rev. 18:4). We live in it – but are not to be a part of it. It’s hard to worship in truth. It is. Because all of society wants you to be part of the way they do things. But once we see the truth, we have a decision to make. Make the right decision and you will be rewarded for it.