1

 "And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between  two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him..." -1 Kings 18:21

2

  "When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." -Deuteronomy 12:29-32

3

"A broad element of English Christianity still considered Christmas celebration a pagan blasphemy. The Puritans, Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Calvinists and other denominations brought this opposition to early New England and strong opposition to the holiday lasted in America until the middle of the 18th century." -The Origins of Christmas," Rick Meisel, Dec. 19, 1993, p. 4.

"...Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the church...." -Encyclopedia Britannica, 1946 edition

4

 "…the golden calf was built and the celebration declared a ‘feast to the Lord.’...The people had declared a celebration to honor God that he did not recognize as being in his honor." Richard Rives, Too Long in the Sun, Partakers Pub., 1996, pp. 129-30.

"Hathor and Aphis, the cow and bull gods of Egypt, were representatives of sun worship. Their worship was just one stage in the long Egyptian history of solar veneration. The golden calf at Mount Sinai is more than sufficient evidence to prove that the feast proclaimed was related to sun worship. The event at Mount Sinai was just one episode in the Satanic apostasy which began at the tower of Babel. The celebration of December 25th, originally proclaimed in honor of the birth of the sun god Mithra, can only be one of the final events in the long continuing saga of Satanic sun worship." -Ibid, pp. 130-31.

5

•  "Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God." -LEVITICUS 18:30
• "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." -2 Corinthians 5:17
• "Abstain from all appearance of evil." -1 Thessalonians 5:22,

6

  Every tree in Satan's garden hangs laden with the fruits of vanity, pride, self-importance, evil desire, extravagance,--all poisoned fruit, but very gratifying to the carnal heart. Let the several churches present to God Christmas trees in every church; and then let them hang thereon the fruits of beneficence and gratitude,--offerings coming from willing hearts and hands, fruits that God will accept as an expression of our faith and our great love to him for the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ. Let the evergreen be laden with fruit, rich, and pure, and holy, acceptable to God. Shall we not have such a Christmas as Heaven can approve? Thousands of dollars are needlessly spent every year in gifts to each other. That is means lost to God, lost to his cause. It pleases the vanity, encourages pride, creates all kinds of dissatisfaction, murmuring, and complaints, because perhaps the gifts are not just what was desired, not of the high value wanted or expected. Christmas is not observed as its name implies it should be. Man has forsaken God in almost everything, and has turned the attention to self. {RH, December 9, 1884 par. 10}

7

 Shall we have a Christmas tree? Will it not be like the world? We answer, You can make it like the world if you have a disposition to do so, or you can make it as unlike the world as possible. There is no particular sin in selecting a fragrant evergreen and placing it in our churches, but the sin lies in the motive which prompts to action and the use which is made of the gifts placed upon the tree.  {AH 482.1}

8

 MERRY:
mer·ry Pronunciation Key  adj. mer·ri·er, mer·ri·est

1. Full of high-spirited gaiety; jolly.
2. Marked by or offering fun and gaiety; festive: a merry evening.
3. Archaic. Delightful; entertaining.
4. Brisk: a merry pace.

9

 CHRIST:
Christ Pronunciation Key n.

1. The Messiah, as foretold by the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. Often used with the.
2. Christianity. Jesus.

10

 MASS:
"In the Christian law, the supreme sacrifice is that of the Mass.  ...The supreme act of worship consists essentially in an offering of a worthy victim to God, the offering made by a proper person, as a priest, the destruction of the victim." --Page 537 of the Catholic Encyclopedia

"The mass is the same sacrifice as the sacrifice of the cross because the Victim is the same. The purpose of the mass is, among other things, to satisfy the justice of God for the sins committed against Him." -Rev. John A. O'Brien, UNDERSTANDING THE CATHOLIC FAITH, Ave Maria Press, Nortre Dame, Ind, 1955, p. 212

11

 "A star cult, sun-worship, became (in the third century A.D.) the dominant official creed, paving the road for the ultimate triumph of Judaeo-Christian monotheism. So strong was the belief in the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus) that for example Constantine I (d. 337), himself at first a devotee of the sun cult, found it, indeed perfectly compatible with his pro-Christian sympathies to authorize his own portrayal as Helios. And in 354 the ascendant Christian church in the reign of his pious but unsavory son, Constantius II, found it prudent to change the celebration of the birth of Jesus from the traditional date (January 6) to December 25, in order to combat the pagan Sun god’s popularity—his "birthday" being December 25." -Frederick H. Cramer, Astrology in Roman Law and Politics, p. 4. Copyright 1954 by the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

12

 ·       "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." -Luke 2:8-11,

13

 "This proves plainly that the flocks were not yet brought home from their pastures, when the angels visited the shepherds. Some have the idea that there is no winter in Palestine, but that is a mistake, because sometimes it is very cold there, so that the lives of both men and beasts are in danger of the cold rain and hail storms of the winter."-- Horne's Introduction, Vol.II, pp. 23,24.

Concerning this, Adam Clarke makes the following remark in his commentary: "It was a custom among the Jews to send out their sheep to the desert about the passover, and bring them home at the commencement of the first rain. [See also the book, The Two Babylons, pages 91,92. ]

14

 Acts 17:30, "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:"

15

 " In his wisdom, the Lord concealed the place where he buried Moses. God buried him, and God resurrected him, and took him to heaven. This secrecy was to prevent idolatry." For the very same purpose he has concealed the precise day of Christ's birth; that the day should not receive the honour that should be given to Christ as the Redeemer of the world, - one to be received, to be trusted, to be relied on as he who could save to the uttermost all who come unto him. The soul's adoration should be given to Jesus as the Son of the infinite God. "There is no divine sanctity resting upon the twenty-fifth of December; and it is not pleasing to God that anything that concerns the salvation of man through the infinite sacrifice made for them, should be so sadly perverted from its professed design. Christ should be the supreme object; but as Christmas has been observed, the glory is turned from him to mortal man, whose sinful, defective character made it necessary for him to come to our world." -R&H 12-9-1884

"Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent:" -ACTS 17:29,30

In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time, ‘about the time of the winter solstice.’ The very name by which Christmas is popularly known among ourselves - Yule day - proves at once its Pagan and Babylonian origin. ‘Yule’ is the Chaldee name for an ‘infant’ or ‘little child’ and as the 25th of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, ‘Yule-day,’ or the ‘Child’s day,’ and the night which preceded it, ‘Mother-night,’ long before they came into contact with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character. Far and wide in the realms of paganism was this birth-day observed." -Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, Loizeaux Brothers pp. 93, 94

Shall we have a Christmas tree? Will it not be like the world? We answer, You can make it like the world if you have a disposition to do so, or you can make it as unlike the world as possible. -R&H 12-11-1879

"Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the ways of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O Lord; thou art great, and thy name is great in might." -JEREMIAH 10:1-6

"What concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?" (2 Cor. 6:15,16)

Cardinal Newman admits in his book that; the "temples, incense, oil lamps, votive offerings, holy water, holidays, and seasons of devotion, processions, blessings of the fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure (of priests, munks and nuns), images, and statues... are all of pagan origin." -The Development of the Christian Religion Cardinal Newman p.359