Now I believe it is safe to say that the overwhelming majority of you who are seated here tonight are aware that the ministry of the Word this evening will be the continuation of a series of messages begun this morning, a series entitled, The Christian and Christmas in the Light of the Scriptures. Let me take a few minutes to try to capture the main points of this morning's message because it's vital to see each part in relationship to the whole. And for those who were here who may have perfect memories and absolute retention of all that you hear, will you just then in love forbear with some of us less endowed mortals who don't have perfect memories and who find the reinforcement of review edifying and helpful, so may I urge you to bear with me as I give this relatively brief review. I began the message with an appeal to Act 1711 that in approaching this subject of the Christian and Christmas, we would seek to maintain the spirit of the Bereans who received the word with readiness of mind and search the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. And then I sought to underscore the difficulty in coming to a subject like this We face the difficulty of inherited traditions, of cultivated emotional and sentimental associations, and also the pressure of the world to conform to its standards. And whenever we try to approach any subject with that threefold influence exerting its pressure upon our thinking, it's difficult to maintain true objectivity. What then are we to do in the light of those pressures? Well, first of all, we must pray. We must pray for grace to bring every tradition to the objective standard of the Word of God. We do not want our Lord to say of us, as He said of the religious people of His own day, you make void the Word of God by your traditions. Matthew 15 and verse 6. Furthermore, we must pray for grace that our sentiments and our emotions will not cloud our judgment or dictate our practice. And finally, we need to pray that we will be given spiritual discernment Even as Paul prayed in Philippians 1, 9 to 11 on behalf of the Philippian Christians, that their love would abound more and more in knowledge and in discernment, that they might approve the things that were excellent and might be filled with the fruits of righteousness. Then I sought to establish that with that prayerful disposition, we must first of all, in approaching such a subject, Get our facts straight. It's amazing how much of our thinking, and therefore our practice, is skewed and deviates from the Word of God because we simply don't have our facts straight. And so I began to set before you two of four basic facts that we must have firmly in hand if we are, by the grace of God, to walk in the light of Scripture with reference to this issue of Christmas and the Christmas holiday. Fact number one. There is no biblical warrant whatsoever for the remembrance of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ by means of a specially designated day of religious or social celebration. Neither our Lord nor His apostles gave the slightest hint that it was the will of God that the people of God should remember the birth of the Son of God by the establishment of a special designated day to remember His birth. The Lord and His apostles gave us a Lord's Day and a Lord's Supper, but they gave us no Christmas Day. And the conclusion that we must draw from that is, with respect to our own lives as individual Christians, our consciences should never be bound to any sense of divine obligation to observe in any way December 25th as a day of religious or social celebration simply because such a day exists. And our own confession of faith beautifully captures the teaching of Scripture in chapter 21 and paragraph 2 with respect to our liberty of conscience from anything that is not forbidden or commanded by our Lord. And then it has a corporate implication, and that is no Christian church has a right to impose upon its people in their corporate life or worship any activities or objects which would indicate any special significance assigned to December 25th. Hence, there are no Christmas decorations in this place where we assemble, there are no Christmas pageants, there are no Christmas cantatas as part of the stated worship. Were we to choose, as a matter of liberty, to use the Christmas holidays as an occasion to hold a special service, optional for members, giving them the opportunity of seeking to bring along unconverted people, at which service we might have a chorale sing some of the marvelous hymns of the faith that focus on the birth of our Lord Jesus, and preach the gospel, that would be our liberty. But we could not bind the consciences of God's people to attend such a service, nor would we call it a stated service of worship. It would be designated as an opportunity to proclaim the gospel by this expedient. But what we're addressing here now is that in our stated gatherings, for that worship of God regulated by His Word, no Christian church has a right to impose upon any of its people any activities or objects which would indicate that there is any special significance to December 25th. And then the second fact we established was this, the designation of December 25th as the day to commemorate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ is rooted in pagan and diluted Christian origins. How did we get December 25th as Christmas Day? And how was such a day designated as a day to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ? And I gave you the answer in what I felt was the most simple and succinct statement in the Baker's Dictionary of Theology, which traces it back to the early 300s between 325 and 354 after Constantine legalized and showed political favor to the Christian faith. It was only then that seeking to replace a pagan festival designated for December 25th, that that date was designated as the time to celebrate the birth of Christ. And by then, the Christian church was already filled with the diluting and polluting influences of sacramentalism, of an imprecise understanding of many of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, and therefore the conclusion we must draw is that as Christians we should have great caution in jumping in an unthinking way on the Christmas bandwagon when it has such evil origins. paganism and a diluted form of the Christian faith. And yet, on the other hand, believing that God is the Lord of history and that he had not vacated his throne when Constantine came to the throne and claimed to have had his vision in which he was, quote, converted to the Christian faith and felt a calling to use his influence as the emperor of Rome to give it legitimacy and to advance its causes, God did not vacate his throne. And therefore, believing God is the Lord of history, who often uses very crooked sticks to accomplish noble purposes, we are reluctant simply to say, well, because it's pagan and diluted Christian in its origins, a plague on the whole thing, I shall have nothing to do with it. No, the thoughtful Christian who reads his Bible and sees that God can call a pagan king by the name of Cyrus His servant who will do His will. We back off and say, well, that approach may make it all neat and tidy, but it will cause us to be embarrassed at factors that we will see in our Bibles and factors that we will see unfolding before our very eyes. Well, that's a review of what it took us an hour to expound this morning. Now we come to fact number three. You get the fact straight? Fact number one, no shred of biblical evidence that Christmas Day has any biblical origins. Fact number two, its origins are found in previously established pagan festivals and a diluted brand of Christianity. Fact number three, the current celebration of Christmas in our society both secular and religious, is essentially, now listen carefully, essentially pagan, humanistic, materialistic, and licentious. Now I know we live in an age where visual images are everything. An age in which people are not concerned about words, they're not concerned about precision with words, But you and I must resist every influence to make us indifferent to words, their meaning, and precision with words, because God communicates to us not in pictures, but in words. And as a minister of the word of God, I am to traffic in words. And I am to seek to reflect in the words I use the truth of the Word of God, and when making comments upon the world about us, to bear a true witness with reference to that world. And I'm asserting that fact number three that must be in place if we're to assess what we as believers are to do with this celebration that we cannot ignore. It will not go away as much as we may wish it would. We must come to grips with the fact that the current celebration of Christmas in our society, both secular and religious, is essentially pagan, humanistic, materialistic, and licentious. Now note, I did not say it is exclusively these things. I said it is essentially. It is pervasively. It is fundamentally. It is by and large characterized by these four things. Now, what do they mean? Pagan? Well, I use that word to describe that which has no reference to the God who is. The God of the Bible. That which is pagan is that which is divorced from the realities of the God of Holy Scripture. The God who in the beginning spoke the world into being, the God who made this world by the word of His mouth in six days, made man in His image placed him in a garden, put him on trial with reference to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, established our first father as the representative head of the whole human race, so that when he fell, according to the scriptures, In Adam, all die. Through the one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, for that all sinned, that is, sinned in our first Father. And that this same God is the God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. sent Him, in the language of Matthew 1.21, as Jesus who would save His people from their sins. I say the current celebration of Christmas in our society, both secular and religious, is essentially pagan. It does not bring forward the realities of the God who is. the God of the Bible, God of creation, the God who, when men fell, brought them under His wrath and curse, the God who sent His Son to be enfleshed in Mary's womb, that He might, living under the law, render perfect obedience to that law and full satisfaction to all of its curses on behalf of sinful men, These issues are said to clog up the joy and the Christmas spirit that we ought to have. Don't confuse the Christmas spirit with such weighty issues of theology. Let's just feel the Christmas spirit. Whether God is thought of, whether God is considered is irrelevant for the vast majority. So I say it is pagan, then it's humanistic. And by that I mean this, humanism is a rationalistic school of thought that holds as its fundamental tenet of belief that man is capable of self-fulfillment, noble ethical conduct and goodness without any recourse to anything supernatural. All that is needed to be good and noble and upright, to have peace on earth and goodwill amongst men, is already in us if only we can all agree to get it out. And how much humanism is heard. in these days. People will say in various theaters of public expression, if only we could capture the Christmas spirit and keep it all year long. Listen to a Christmas prayer. You want to hear a mouthful of humanistic nothing? Listen to this. Put out by the New York Life Insurance. Looks so spiritual. Appearing in a secular magazine. Let us pray that strength and courage abundant be given to all who work for a world of reason and understanding, that the good that lies in every man's heart may day by day be magnified, that men will come to see more clearly not that which divides them, but that which unites them. that each hour may bring us closer to a final victory, not of nation over nation, but of man over his own evils and weaknesses. The victory of man over his weaknesses. The emergence of the good that already lies in every man. that the true spirit of this Christmas season, its joy, its beauty, its hope, and above all, its abiding faith, faith in what? Faith in man's own inherent goodness, faith in man's ability to pull himself up by his own bootstraps, may live among us, that the blessings of peace be ours, the peace to build and grow, to live in harmony and sympathy with others, and to plan for the future with confidence. Isn't that marvelous? It's a rotten, wretched expression of pure humanism. To whom would you pray that prayer but man? God couldn't hear a prayer like that. There's no truth in it. Man's inherent goodness would emerge. Man's ability to conquer his own evils. No, my friends, the humanism of the Christmas season is a stench in the nostrils of God, because the scripture says in Jeremiah 17 9, Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm and whose heart departs from Jehovah. And then it is essentially materialistic. And what is materialism? It's the doctrine or teaching that comfort and pleasure and wealth are the only or the highest values. Materialism is the teaching that to be more concerned with the material than spiritual values is right and proper. Now, I don't need to give you the proof that the Christmas season is marked by this word, materialistic. tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps into the billions, wasted on stuff that will be junked before the first of March. The advertisements that go out to the person who has everything and needs nothing, for forty-five dollars you can register a star in his name. And the registry will be put in a vault in a bank in Switzerland. I'm not kidding you. That ad goes out over a number of radio stations. What assaninity! What foolishness! What wretched materialism! And in every department store, someone's being paid good money. to stuff a pillow in his breeches and put on a silly red suit and become the GIMME GOD for every little kid that'll sit on his lap. That's what Santa is. He's the GIMME GOD. GIMME GOD. GIMME GOD. That's who he is. He's the very essence of this materialistic perspective. So I say the current celebration of Christmas in our society, both secular and religious, is essentially pagan. humanistic, materialistic, and licentious. And what does licentious mean? It means morally unrestrained. When but at Christmas time could people get half drunk in an office and allow the kind of sexual teasing and promiscuity to go on unchecked? And it's all right when you have a Christmas party in the office. Licentious. licentiousness, moral lack of restraint with regard to irresponsible incurrence of debt for the sake of purchasing junk, people living totally beyond their means, throwing their plastic cards around like crazy, with no sense of the stewardship of money and things, Hang a little piece of mistletoe and that gives you the right then to engage in physical intimacies that otherwise would get you a slap on the face. The drunkenness. And with the drunkenness, the lowering of the sense of self-respect and of morals and all that follows, I don't need to tell you. Surely you would agree with me. Your judgment, your own conscience affirms that when I say it is a fact, that the current celebration of Christmas in our society, both secular and religious, is essentially pagan, humanistic, materialistic, and licentious, it is an accurate statement. And then, in the light of that, what is a Christian to think? Well, on the one hand, a Christian knows that his life is to be framed by such passages as Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who does not walk. in the counsel of the ungodly, who does not stand in the way of sinners, who does not sit in the seat of scoffers. He does not deliberately associate with those whose lifestyles are marked by paganism, humanism, materialism, and licentiousness. He knows his Bible well enough to know that God says to him in 1 John 2, 15 and following, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For all that is in the world, and surely we see it heightened at this season, is what? The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the vain glory of life. If ever the world shows its true nature, Its own devilish trinity. It is at this season, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the vain glory of life, which are not of the Father, but of the world. And the world passes away and the lust thereof, but only he who does the will of God abides forever. Furthermore, the Christian is conscious that there is in his remaining sin that which could find an affinity with any one of these expressions. And he hears the Lord Jesus saying to him in Luke 21-34, Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, excessive banqueting, partying, and drunkenness in the cares of this life. and that they come on you suddenly as a snare? Jesus is talking to his own disciples. He says, You take heed, take heed, lest your hearts... You see, these things that on the surface seem to be external, they have a way of wrapping their tentacles around the heart and seizing the heart and squeezing out every last semblance of spirituality. For on the one hand, the Christian is fearful of any celebration that by and large in society, both religious and secular, is marked by being pagan, humanistic, materialistic, and licentious. And yet, and yet, because in some way or another it still is connected with his Savior, it is seen on thousands of Christmas cards. highway billboards and is heard in carols that are sung because there is still some association of this day and this celebration and this holiday with His blessed Lord. He feels something of what His Lord felt when He came to the temple, the place that was to be a house of prayer for all people. And it had become a den of thieves and robbers. And he felt a holy burning anger that caused him to take a court and to drive out the beast and to turn over the changers' money tables and to drive out the changers themselves. And there is something in the heart of a true Christian that says, if you want a holiday that has anything to do with my Lord, then you're going to have to confront me. seeking in His name the purges of that which dishonors Him. And if we're going to have a day that celebrates the coming into human history of the second person of the Godhead, we'll cleanse the temple of such a day of all of these things that dishonor God. And so a Christian who is sensitive to the honor of his Lord feels those mingled feelings of deep aversion and the desire to utterly dissociate himself from the day which all around him is pervasively pagan, humanistic, materialistic, and licentious, and yet because it is a day associated with the blessed Savior to whom he looks for life and salvation for all eternity, he longs in some way to see it stripped of all of this nonsense, and if there is to be any day to see it a day in which he's truly honored. But then there's fact number four. And this is going to be the hardest fact for some of you to come to grips with. Up till now, you've been in my amen corner inwardly, if not verbally and outwardly. But now hear me. Don't tune me out because this is a fact and I believe I'll be able to prove it as convincingly as any of the others. Fact number four. In God's common grace, much good has and continues to come to men in connection with the Christmas season and Christmas Day in particular. You say, uh-oh, there he goes, compromising. No, listen carefully. In God's common grace, Much good has and continues to come to men in connection with the Christmas season and Christmas Day in particular. You say, Pastor Martin, what do you mean by God's common grace? Well, common grace is not a biblical term. It's a theological term like the term the Trinity. The term the Trinity is an attempt to take a human word to express a truth revealed in scripture that there is one God, and that one God exists in three distinct persons, and the three are one and the one are three. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three gods, and yet the Father is not the Son nor the Spirit. The Son is not the Father nor the Spirit. The Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. And so we've had to come up with a term to express this reality. It's a theological term, not a biblical term. Likewise, common grace is not a biblical term. It's a theological term to express a biblical truth. And what do we mean by common grace? Just this. It is the benevolent activity of God which includes or which imparts Grace that does not save, but accomplishes two things amongst men. One negative, one positive. It restrains men's potential for evil. That's the negative part of common grace. And positively, it inclines and enables men to do that which is beneficial to mankind. Now, when we use the term common grace, we're speaking of that benevolent activity of God that does not impart saving grace to men, but it does restrain their potential for evil and inclines and enables them to do that which is beneficial to mankind. And I say it is a fact that in God's common grace, In this benevolent disposition and activity of God, restraining and inclining, God has and continues to bring much good, particularly at this Christmas season. You know as well as I do that temporary truces among warring nations are declared. on Christmas Day and sometimes for a few days before and after. Now let me ask you, is it of God or of the devil that men who hate one another enough or whose governments are at sufficiently intense odds that they send their citizens to war with one another, is it of God or the devil that they should lay down their arms for one hour, one day, three days? I ask you, is that of God or of the devil? Are you prepared to say that men who will joyfully go forth to kill their fellow men in a cause that they feel is just and noble and are willing to lay down their arms, that it's the devil that creates that disposition? No, he is a murderer from the beginning, the scripture tells us in John 8.44. as well as a liar, and it's God's common grace that will cause men to lay down their arms for an hour, for a day. And how many times at the Christmas season have there been temporary truces that have even led to the cessation, eventually, of hostilities? God's common grace restraining evil and then even bringing in its train the positive good of civil peace. Think of the many totally secular organizations that become unusually concerned for others at the Christmas season, collecting money, purchasing and wrapping gifts and taking them to hospitals, to institutions for the sick and the mentally retarded and all of the other benevolent concerns that have an unusually heightened activity in conjunction with December 25th. Now, that's just a fact. Can't argue with it. That's reality. We could bring forward the financial statements verified by these various organizations who've had certified validation that this is an accurate reflection of what they've done and we would see clustered around the Christmas season a heightened measure of benevolence. Think of the general raising of the level of generosity. people who are absolute tightwads most of the time. Suddenly they begin to spend their money and some of it in good concerns for the concerns of others during this season. thinking the bringing together of families that during the rest of the year extended families with little contact with one another but something about this particular holiday that they're willing to do what they must do to get together and to have a sense of family solidarity, a blessing to mankind. Think of people who are disposed to hear all kinds of biblical truth at this season who wouldn't give it a moment's hearing at another season. I marvel when I think of the millions of people every Christmas season that hear all the gobs of scripture that are in Handel's Messiah, who would never hear it any other time. If you were to tell them to go in February to a certain auditorium where there was going to be some music that had words that were nothing but scripture, you couldn't get them to go there with a gun at their head. Yet they'll go and pay money for it at the Christmas season. And God says, no word of mine shall be void of power. Who knows and how much will the day of judgment reveal that this was not only God's common grace leavening the minds of men with the impact of scripture, but maybe even prevenient grace, sowing seeds that would ultimately lead to their conversion. Who knows? Who knows when men have been in distress that God has not brought back those haunting words, Behold the Lamb of God, Behold the Lamb of God, repeated over and over and over again. Who knows, who knows, when people have despaired and wondered, is history going anywhere? Is there any meaning to life, ready to be utter nihilists, blow their brains out? And they've heard the majestic strains of, He shall reign forever and ever and ever and ever, and He shall reign. Are you prepared to say that all of that scripture that has gone forth is void of power? that the devil's been behind that much scripture going out? I'm not prepared to say that. I'm prepared to say that's God's common grace. I'm prepared to say that when people are disposed to attend a place of Christian worship, who at no other time in the year except maybe the Easter season in the Christian, so-called Christian calendar, and are disposed and inclined to receive religious literature as a gift, you've got neighbors. If you tried to give them a Christian book in April, they'd throw it on the junkie, but wrap it up in some pretty paper and put a little personal note. and say, this is an expression of my appreciation for you being my neighbor, it's my Christmas gift to you, and all I ask in response is that you read the first ten pages? Are you prepared to say they're not more inclined to do that in this season than another? I'm not. It would go contrary to everything I know. Now, have I said enough? Do I need to add more? You see, the point I'm seeking to establish is that in God's common grace, much good has and continues to come to men in connection with the Christmas season and Christmas Day in particular. Well then, if that's so, what is my response as a Christian to be? Well, since every good gift has its origin in God, James chapter 1, verse 17, every good and every perfect gift comes down from above from the Father of lights. I must not totally reject out of hand what God obviously is doing. You see, I don't ever want to have a controversy with what God's doing to keep my own little neat package perspective on an issue. I may want to say, look, it's pagan in its origins. It's utterly pagan, materialistic, hedonistic, and every other nasty word in its practice, a plague and a whole thing. Well, is that the way God treats it? I don't see that that's the way God treats it. I see God in common grace, using that thing that had its origins in paganism and in a diluted form of Christianity. I see God using it as a vehicle of His common grace, and sometimes even to be the framework to impart saving grace. And therefore, if God does that, then should I not seek to be like him? For we read in Matthew chapter 5 that we are to be like our Father in heaven who sends his reign upon the just and upon the unjust. And Galatians 6 and verse 10 is the text that I want to rivet to your consciences as God's people, or trust the spirit of God will rivet to your conscience, where the apostle says, as we have opportunity, and he doesn't qualify it, he doesn't say if the opportunity arises from something that is distinctively and exclusively Christian. He says, as we have opportunity, Let us work that which is good toward all men, especially but not exclusively to them that are of the household of faith. And does this season that God uses as a time to exercise unusual measures of His common grace, both restraining men's evil and inclining them to do that which is good, does not this provide for us as Christians an unusual season of opportunity, a season of opportunity to work good, without in any way partaking of evil. As it does, then God has obligated us to work that which is good toward all men. Now I've laid before you the four facts. I trust I've carried your judgment. If I've not, then I've failed in my mission, and I'll be glad to meet with you individually and try to persuade you that these are indeed facts. No biblical warrant for the establishment of a day of celebration of Christ's birth. Fact number two, its origins are pagan and a diluted Christianity. Fact number three, its current celebration in our society is pervasively wicked. But, fact number four, God in common grace does much good to men in connection with the Christmas season and Christmas Day in particular. Now, having laid the facts before you, we raise now the question, what is a Christian to do? Well, I want to give you what I call the two simplistic answers, and I'll touch on them very briefly. The two simplistic answers and then point you in the direction of the biblical answer and give you a homework assignment and hope if God spares us and brings us together next Lord's Day, we'll be prepared to delve into Romans chapter 14 and a portion or two of 1 Corinthians chapter 8 for the biblical principles that ought to guide us. But in answer to the question, in the light of these facts, what am I as a Christian to do? Well, there are groups of Christians that would give what I regard to be simplistic answers, and they fall into two categories. The first category is the total rejection and aggressive opposition position. The total rejection and aggressive opposition position. It goes like this. For me, for my family, we will have nothing whatsoever to do with December 25 as a special day. We'll have no seasonal decorations in our home, outside our home. There will be no exchange of presents in connection with that day. There will be nothing to indicate in our lives that the day exists. Now, I don't know of anyone who holds that position who's been perfectly consistent, and if they've held up a piece of mail to the light that looked like a Christmas card wrote on it, return to sender. Now there may be such people, but I've not met them. I've met those who held this position who still opened up their Christmas cards. They may have looked at them feeling they'd be defiled if they read them or got too close and just looked at them like this and then threw them in the waste bin. I don't know, but that's their position. And furthermore, hear me now carefully. They are convinced that it is an unmixed moral evil and that they have an obligation aggressively to enlighten the conscience of every other Christian, that they ought to do exactly as they do. So they find the tracts that tell us that the Christmas tree has its origin in the pagan things described in the book of Ezekiel. And then they have these other little booklets that try to tell us there's this evil and that. They'd make anyone believe that if they so much as had a candle in a window, they had sold out to paganism and that their Christianity was suspect. Now, there are such people. They've sent me their literature. They've sent me letters begging me. begging me, saying, Pastor Martin, you seem to be so biblical in so many things. When are you going to wake up, get biblical about Christmas? You see, they're trying to knock it down with a very limited sphere of influence, and they see someone that has a little larger sphere of influence, and they want him to be their champion. Well, I've had people that try to get me on their side to be their champion, to embrace what I believe is a simplistic position. the position of total rejection and aggressive opposition, it would never occur to them that in praying for their unsaved neighbor, One of the ways that prayer might be answered is judiciously to find a card that had some biblical substance and to enclose a personal letter conveying the gospel, believing that that neighbor might, in opening the card and reading the letter, hear the message of light at a time that was utterly unique to them. Never would occur to them. No, no, that would be to approve it today. I won't do it. I say that's a very neat, tidy position. The problem is it fails to reckon with some of the facts that we've set before you, and I believe it fails to reckon with some of the things that we will see in the principles of Romans chapter 14, God willing, next week. Then on the other end of the spectrum, there is the position, I call it the wholesale capture and aggressive support position. The wholesale capture and aggressive support position. It goes like this. Since this is a time when there's a natural bridge of connection to Christ, let's stuff Christ back into Christmas. And let's put him in aggressively in every way we can. And therefore, let's, if we town ordinances would permit it, have loudspeakers blaring out the Christmas hymns that have lots of gospel truth in them, such ones that speak of born that men no more may die. The Christmas songs that speak of born to raise the sons of earth, born to give us second birth. Let's blare out the gospel. Let's capture Christmas for Christ. And furthermore, they are aggressive in trying to get every other Christian. And they look down their noses on someone who says before God, I have reservations of conscience about this day. In many aspects of it, as for me and my house, we're going to take the posture of seeking to act as though the day did not exist, not because I'm a Scrooge, but because before God I cannot with good conscience enter into it, and they will aggressively seek to tell them, look, you're wrong. You're missing opportunities. You must seek to come over to the wholesale capture and aggressive support position. Can't you see it's of God that people will still acknowledge that Christ was born? Can't you see it's of God that it's declared a national holiday? Can't you see it's of God that people are open and disposed, at least in some way, to consider the realities of gospel truth? And they unthinkingly will adopt the whole package, the whole nine yards, irresponsible debt spending, because they wouldn't want to rob their kids of the joy of having presents. They would not want their kids to think them tight-fisted. They would not want their kids to have to face neighbors' kids. And when they start saying, what do you get for Christmas, to have them shown up and feel embarrassed that all they got was some little thing that was within your means. And so they just, without any discretion, just throw themselves on the Christmas bandwagon, wholesale capture and aggressive support position. I say that, too, is simplistic. It fails to take into account that a Christian must have a love that is marked by discernment and moral sensitivity, that he is not to be identified with that which is pervasively worldly and sinful in any of its aspects, and therefore he must be very, very selective and careful. You say, Pastor, you really haven't given us any answers. All you've done is create problems. Well, if the problem I've created is one that makes you convinced that maybe you need to open up this whole issue and look at it afresh in the light of your Bible, I'm thankful that I've spent my labors to create a problem. Anything that gets us in the place where we're determined to come to our Bibles with fresh mental and spiritual earnestness, crying to God that He'd teach us His ways, can only do us good. Now your homework assignment is, in the coming week, to prayerfully, some of you may choose, this is a matter of liberty, I can't mandate any of this, so I shouldn't say your homework assignment, your suggested homework assignment is. Wouldn't you kids love it if your teachers called it that, suggested? And you just see her the next morning, where's your homework? I didn't follow your suggestion, teacher, but I can't bind your conscience. But I would strongly urge, maybe do more than suggest, that you prayerfully read through Romans 14 throughout the coming week and seek to discover the four major principles which Paul sets forth as the will of God amongst the people of God with respect to such things As Christmas, obviously, you see, I'm placing the matter of keeping Christmas, celebrating Christmas in one way or another, so long as it's within the bounds of God's moral law in the area of Christian liberty, things in different things that are not explicitly condemned by the Word of God. Parallel to the matter of someone who does not, for one reason or another, verse two of Romans 14, does not eat meat. That was not a scruple he would have picked up because he was a Jew, because there was nothing in Jewish dietary laws that forbade the eating of meat, only the forbidding of eating certain unclean meats. So this vegetarian conviction was something someone carried over from paganism. So it is proper that this passage should be applied to issues that are not necessarily rooted in matters pertaining to Old Testament Levitical dietary laws, but even pagan dietary laws. And someone's conscience is still, in that area, acting like a pagan's. And Paul describes what he is to do and what others who don't have his conscience are to do. And then it touches on the matter of days, verse 6. He that regards the day regards it to the Lord. And he that eats, eats to the Lord. And he that eats not to the Lord, he eats not. There is the matter of days, not the Lord's day. That was not a matter of liberty. The Lord's Day Sabbath is a matter of moral law and Christian responsibility, but the keeping of other days, most assuredly some of the old Jewish feast days which Christians continued to keep in the first century, and quite possibly other days that some may have carried over from other backgrounds. So in this passage we have the principles that are to guide us in such matters. And my suggested, urged homework assignment is that you go through the passage and seek to discover the four major principles that must guide our thinking and our practice. And if by the grace of God we can come to a fresh understanding of those principles and apply them to the question, the Christian and the celebration of Christmas, We will not only by the grace of God find that course of action that pleases God, that enables us to walk with a good conscience before God, but will enable us to maintain peace and unity while there is a diversity of individual and domestic practice among us, while there is uniformity in terms of our corporate life and worship being utterly stripped. of anything that has to do with the imposition of this day upon the public worship of the people of God. Now by the grace of God, the Lord has helped us to maintain that posture over the years. We've sustained seasons when we had people who had come to either of these simplistic responses and began to be quite aggressive in trying to persuade and bully their brethren to their position. This passage utterly forbids that in its very opening words. You see how it does it. I don't want to do your homework for you, but it utterly forbids it. It demands that each of you give serious consideration until you can say, I am persuaded before God in my own judgment, in the theater of my conscience. This is what my actions ought to be. And then to hold to those actions with a good conscience before the Lord and not to seek to impose that upon one another. So I trust that you will attempt to do the homework. Some of you have children old enough you might want to make it a project for family worship this week so that when you and the kids come next Lord's Day together it will be a season I trust of invigorating study in this passage as we seek to focus upon those four principles and then do some mopping up of some practical questions arising out of those principles and their application. to our hearts and lives. Well, dear people, thank you for bearing with me. So many of you mentioned how helpful and thankful you were for the ministry this morning, and that it was timely, and that's what we live for, that we might minister to your prophet. And I trust that our consideration today of these concerns will lead us further into the path of righteousness and the life of holiness, that we may come to the end of the so-called Christmas season with an enlightened conscience and with a good conscience by the grace of God. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you for your holy word that is a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway. And as we have spoken tonight of the grievous state of our own society at this season of the year, We thank You that in the midst of all that grieves us, there is yet an opportunity for us freely to proclaim the good tidings that You have sent a Savior for sinners, that You in mercy have put forth the arm of Your strength to rescue men from the guilt and the bondage of their sins. And we pray that as we study Your Word together, You will bring all of us subject to that Word And though there will continue to exist among us differing perspectives and differing practices with regard to this day, Lord grant that our differing perspectives and practices may all fall within the guidelines of Holy Scripture. We know that in this way you will be glorified. Peace and unity will be maintained amongst us. and our witness to the world will be credible. Seal, then, your word to our hearts and undertake and help those who are wrestling with very specific and knotty questions. Grant that each one may be determined with all of his heart to follow you, no matter what the cost may be. Seal, then, that word for our prophet. To the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.