Today, January 23, 2012, is our 30th wedding anniversary. As an anniversary present, I am taking Deborah to the place where the gospel first came to her mother’s side of the family. We are scheduled to arrive this afternoon. We are going to celebrate the power of the gospel. We will be visiting the place they lived when they were married and converted, and the places they evangelized and lived. This is a gospel-celebrating wedding anniversary.
The Indiana DMV is promoting debauchery among young Indianans by raising money for it and facilitating connections through advertising. This year there were ten new organizations that have been granted the privilege of raising funds through specialty license plates in Indiana. Now, the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth group, “The Indiana Youth Group” has become one of those ten.
Here is the opening statement of the report:
INDIANAPOLIS | Indiana’s first specialty license plate that benefits gay causes is now available for purchase.
Bureau of Motor Vehicles spokesman Graig Lubsen said the Indiana Youth Group plate has been available since Dec. 28. The plate bears a logo with hands in rainbow colors reaching up.
Some $25 from sales of each $40 plate goes to the group serving lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. The Indianapolis-based organization operates an activity center, helps develop Gay Straight Alliances in high schools and assists communities in forming youth services. The group serves about 1,400 youths and young adults ages 12 to 21, The Indianapolis Star reported in a Wednesday story.
“All the money will go directly for services to these young people,” Youth Group Director Mary Byrne said.
The word calvinist has many connotations. Some are disenfranchised by what they think of Calvin. Others limit Calvinism to the “Five Points.” Calvinism, however, is a vision of God—a vision that every father, mother, son, or daughter, even every church leader, must have their eye fixed upon.
The Calvinist, in a word, is the man who sees God. He has caught sight of the ineffable Vision, and he will not let it fade for a moment from his eyes–God in nature, God in history, God in grace. Everywhere he sees God in His mighty stepping, everywhere he feels the working of His mighty arm, the throbbing of His mighty heart…Calvinism is just Christianity. The super-naturalism for which Calvinism stands is the very breath of the nostrils of Christianity; without it Christianity cannot exist…Calvinism thus emerges to our sight as nothing more or less than the hope of the world.
—B.B. Warfield
“Lord’s day, Jan. 1, 1744. In the morning had some small degree of assistance in prayer. Saw myself so vile and unworthy, that I could not look my people in the face, when I came to preach. Oh, my meanness, folly, ignorance, and inward pollution! In the evening had a little assistance in prayer, so that the duty was delightful, rather than burdensome. Reflected on the goodness of God to me in the past year, &c. Of a truth God has been kind and gracious to me, though he has caused me to pass through many sorrows; he has provided for me bountifully, so that I have been enabled, in about fifteen months past, to bestow to charitable uses about a hundred pounds New England money, that I can now remember. Blessed be the Lord, that has so far used me as his steward, to distribute a portion of his goods. May I always remember, that all I have comes from God. Blessed be the Lord, that has carried me through all the toils, fatigues, and hardships of the year past, as well as the spiritual sorrows and conflicts that have attended it. O that I could begin this year with God, and spend the whole of it to his glory, either in life or death!
According to Channel3000.com, “The display, which was installed on Wednesday [Dec. 14], is in response to the traditional Christian Nativity scene on display at the Capitol [seemingly in Wisconsin], which was assembled by the conservative group Wisconsin Family Action.
Aside from the manger, the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s display isn’t the typical Nativity scene. The display includes a baby girl in a manger, three wise people and Venus as Mary. Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Mark Twain make up the three wise people. The angels in the scene include the Statue of Liberty and an astronaut.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation said its display is meant to celebrate the winter solstice. The group said that in celebrating the winter solstice, it is celebrating reality.” (more…)
What about Christmas? Ponder through the Twelve Days of Christmas series and test each of them by the Word of God.
Day 1: Sermon by Charles Spurgeon
Day 2: Jonathan Edwards on Christmas, Easter, and New Year’s
Day 3: XMAS by A.W. Pink
Day 4: John Piper
Day 5: George Whitefield
Day 6: Brian Schwertly
Day 7: John MacArthur on the Christmas Tree
Day 8: A Scottish Covenanter – George Gillespie – on Christmas
Day 9: Two Sermons Commenting on Christmas Observance from Charles Spurgeon
Day 10: Rethinking the Pagan Origins of Christmas
Day 11: The Puritans on Christmas
Day 12.1: Did We Celebrate Christmas in Early American History?
Day 12.2: More Quotes from the 17th to the 19th Centuries
Day 12.3: What Roman Catholics Say About Christmas
Day 12.4: Christmas And The Use of Time
Day 12.5: R.C. Sproul and J.I. Packer
R.C. Sproul
R.C. Sproul makes this contribution to the discussion of Christmas.
“That question comes up every year at Christmastime. In the first place, there’s no direct biblical commandment to celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25. There’s nothing in the Bible that would even indicate that Jesus was born on December 25. In fact, there’s much in the New Testament narratives that would indicate that it didn’t occur during that time of year. It just so happens that on the twenty-fifth of December in the Roman Empire there was a pagan holiday that was linked to mystery religions; the pagans celebrated their festival on December 25. The Christians didn’t want to participate in that, and so they said, “While everybody else is celebrating this pagan thing, we’re going to have our own celebration. We’re going to celebrate the thing that’s most important in our lives, the incarnation of God, the birth of Jesus Christ. So this is going to be a time of joyous festivities, of celebration and worship of our God and King.” (more…)
The way I view what God is telling us in the Scriptures, regarding Christmas, all boils down to second and fourth commandment issues, and that our Lord is sovereign over the use of time, and He is also the only one with the authority and right to institute holy days (and He has given us 52 holy days per year, in the Lord’s day, and no others).—Reg Barrow
“I would to God that every holy day (including Christmas – ed.) whatsoever besides the Lord’s day were abolished. That zeal which brought them first in, was without all warrant of the Word, and merely followed corrupt reason, forsooth to drive out the holy days of the pagans, as one nail drives out another. Those holy days have been so tainted with superstitions that I wonder we tremble not at their very names.” – Martin Bucer, cited in William Ames, A Fresh Suit Against Human Ceremonies in God’s Worship (1633), pp. 359-60.
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“And next in particular, concerning festival days findeth that in the explication of the first head of the first book of discipline it was thought good that the feasts of Christmas, Circumcision, Epiphany, with the feasts of the Apostles, Martyrs, and Virgin Mary be utterly abolished because they are neither commanded nor warranted by Scripture and that such as observe them be punished by Civil Magistrates. Here utter abolition is craved and not reformation of abuses only and that because the observation of such feasts have no warrant from the word of God.” – The Acts of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland, December 10, Session 17, 1638, pp. 37-38 (more…)
“I would to God that every holy day (including Christmas – ed.) whatsoever besides the Lord’s day were abolished. That zeal which brought them first in, was without all warrant of the Word, and merely followed corrupt reason, forsooth to drive out the holy days of the pagans, as one nail drives out another. Those holy days have been so tainted with superstitions that I wonder we tremble not at their very names.” – Martin Bucer, cited in William Ames, A Fresh Suit Against Human Ceremonies in God’s Worship (1633), pp. 359-60.
“And next in particular, concerning festival days findeth that in the explication of the first head of the first book of discipline it was thought good that the feasts of Christmas, Circumcision, Epiphany, with the feasts of the Apostles, Martyrs, and Virgin Mary be utterly abolished because they are neither commanded nor warranted by Scripture and that such as observe them be punished by Civil Magistrates. Here utter abolition is craved and not reformation of abuses only and that because the observation of such feasts have no warrant from the word of God.” – The Acts of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland, December 10, Session 17, 1638, pp. 37-38
Here is a very thoughtful and helpful article by Brian Abshire, “Rethinking the Pagan Origins of Christmas”, where he tells the story of how he has changed over the years in his view of Christmas. He offers a number of historical and logical arguments for his change. In his younger years, he was radically anti-Christmas, but with further consideration over the years, he thinks differently.
George Gillespie, a Scottish Covenanter and one of Scotland’s Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly, wrote this in A Dispute Against English Popish Ceremonies:
“… by communicating with idolaters in their rites and ceremonies, we ourselves become guilty of idolatry; even as Ahaz, 2 Kings 16:10, was an idolater, eo ipso, that he took the pattern of an altar from idolaters. Forasmuch, then, as kneeling before the consecrated bread, the sign of the cross, surplice, festival days (like Christmas, Easter, etc. – ed.), bishopping, bowing down to the altar, administration of the sacraments in private places, etc., are the wares of Rome, the baggage of Babylon, the trinkets of the whore, the badges of Popery, the ensigns of Christ’s enemies, and the very trophies of antichrist, — we cannot conform, communicate and symbolise with the idolatrous Papists in the use of the same, without making ourselves idolaters by participation. Shall the chaste spouse of Christ take upon her the ornaments of the whore? Shall the Israel of God symbolise with her who is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt? Shall the Lord’s redeemed people wear the ensigns of their captivity? Shall the saints be seen with the mark of the beast? Shall the Christian church be like the antichristian, the holy like the profane, religion like superstition, the temple of God like the synagogue of Satan?” – George Gillespie (Scottish Covenanter and one of Scotland’s Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly), A Dispute Against English Popish Ceremonies, in Gillespie’s Works volume one, p. 80, SWRB reprint.
Is it wrong to have a Christmas tree? Is the modern Christmas tree the same thing that Jeremiah condemned in Jeremiah 10:2-4? Pastor John MacArthur states his view with clarity, “As the Christmas Season approaches, questions like this sometimes arise. Like everything in life, it is important to approach these issues with biblical discernment. In this case, we see nothing wrong with the traditional Christmas tree. However, some have taught that it’s wrong for anyone to have a Christmas tree in their home. But are their reasons valid? We don’t think so. Let’s look at the two most common objections people make against having a Christmas tree.” Read the rest of the article here.
On the radical rejection of Christmas observance side of the argument, Brian Schwertly gives a detailed analysis of Christmas, covering such things as the Regulative Principle of Worship, and that Christmas is a monument to past and present idolatry. He says that the world loves Christmas and much more. Read this analysis of Christmas by Schwertly.
Hello, I am Scott Brown, a local church pastor and expository preacher. I also help people think through the two greatest institutions God has provided — the church and the family. Read More »
