What Separates Us

Is it important to understand what separates us from the world? We have been told all our lives that as Christians we should bring people together and be nice and sweet, but what does Christ tell us?

In Matthew 10:34-35 we are told by Christ himself

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law."

So Christ is telling us that he came to set us against one another, to separate us from the world. You see the world has a form of righteousness. Satan will appear as an angel of righteousness and talk about saving the planet or feeding the hungry. All of which seem as so-called "good things" but we miss the point.

There is no salvation in doing "good" things. There is no good without God in the first place. Yet when we do these things the world considers it as righteousness. So, Satan appears to support things that seem righteous. He talks about the children and feeding the hungry and giving and many things that can fool us into believing that maybe he is a god himself and he will even have us believe he is the true God.

If you follow his false righteousness you can feed the hungry all the way to the gates of Hell and totally miss the true righteousness, which begins and ends for us with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. He IS righteousness, not any so-called "good" work that we do.

So what are these things that separate us? Can we identify some of them? Could it be adultery or fornication? These are sins and as Christians we abstain from these. Could it be robbery or drunkenness? We all know stealing is a sin and we abstain from it. We also don’t go around drunk because this too is a sin and we reject it.

Again Satan has a righteousness and it can fool us. For instance, how many worldly fathers and sons argue about adultery where one actually says adultery is a good thing? Or perhaps they argue that robbery is a virtuous thing or one might argue for drunkenness? No, I tell you abstaining from these things are also considered righteous by the world.

The things that truly separate us are the issues that are backed by scripture but ridiculed, scorned and cast out by the world and even by the so-called modern day church. One of the most explosive separation issues is Christmas.

Read scripture from Jeremiah Chapter 10 Verses 1-5:

"Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way 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 ax. 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."

Here the Bible is describing an ancient pagan tradition that has come to be known as Christmas and anyone who cares to research the holiday will quickly realize it is fully and completely a pagan celebration dating back for thousands of years.

Pagans would and still do bring trees into their houses and deck them with silver and gold in order to worship their gods during the season of winter. They ask for their blessings to protect them during the cold months and today they sit and laugh at Christians who will fight tooth and nail to preserve the "Christmas Tree" from being taken down from a piece of governmental property when it has nothing to do with Christ at all. It belongs to the pagans!

The so-called special date of December 25th is not special because of Jesus’ birth but for the position of the sun on the horizon. This is what Jeremiah was talking about when he said "and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them."

A pagan's main source of worship is the sun and as the days got shorter they would begin to worry that the sun wouldn't return to springtime again. They would be dismayed during these changes in the seasons and on the 25th (being just a few days past the solstice) the sun would appear to begin its journey back toward springtime.

How Christians picked this mess up is a long and sorted tale. Our beliefs have been corrupted and we are barely aware of it. Suffice it to say that the only thing people can do is dream up reasons why the holiday could somehow be holy when it is NOT at all holy. Of course some will just twist scripture and say it really doesn't mean that or that was for them and not us or some other weak watered down tripe.

However, for the rest of us we are left with two clear sides, both sides know what the Bible says but one side rejects it in order please themselves, their families or for tradition’s sake and another side that is willing to allow themselves to be separated from the world.

Now, I understand that in Christ we are free and celebrating Christmas in ignorance will not necessarily send you to Hell but at some point you need to understand the facts. Realize that you are passing on the traditions of pagans and not the traditions of God. It is as simple as that and don’t forget that he that doubteth is damned if he eat not of faith.

Sadly, you probably know a great deal about Christmas lore. Santa, the reindeer, the trees, the elves and so on but what do you know about the traditions of God? What do you know about Passover for example? Is it possible you know nothing about it? Is it possible you have never even heard of it? 

I understand there is no salvation in any of these holidays but why is it we know so much about paganism's holidays while at the same time we know nothing about the holidays that Christ himself observed and fulfilled and why is there so little interest in these feast days? It boggles the mind.

Back to my point, it is clear that there are a lot more people who will cast us out over the fact that we have rejected Christmas than they will because of our views on adultery. This is an area that has great potential to truly separate us and I mean separate us to the point that people no longer even wish to speak to us unless it is to tell us how wrong we are.

This in itself is a sign that we are separate from the world but stop for a moment and consider the issue upon which Satan makes his stand, a holiday. A time when togetherness and family are stressed, a time when those who usually have the most sway in your life get together to continue the traditions that you have been brought up in, nothing seems more honest, natural and good to us than this time.

Then the Holy Spirit reveals the truth but the devil is prepared for this, he has spent many lifetimes building up resistance to this day when the truth is revealed. The idea is to bring your families, your childhood, your neighbors and the entire world down upon your head so that you will look past the truth and instead remain where you are most comfortable.

He has built descriptive words right into our consciousness for the occasion. Entire characters framed in our minds to describe anyone who would dare reject his holiday. Scrooge! Bah, Humbug! You will hear and no one wants to be a Scrooge, not even Scrooge himself, as he came around also in the end.

As a rule of thumb you can gauge how close you are getting to the truth by the amount of resistance you receive from abiding in it. Tell someone you are against adultery and you will not receive much condemnation, unless you happen to be at a swinger's convention, but mention to your loving family that Christmas is a pagan abomination and they will not sit still for it, you will be labeled a Scrooge.

You can try to explain it until you are blue in the face but they can not hear it. They don't want to understand it. They prefer to wallow in a pool of ignorance because it really doesn't matter to them. What's really important isn't understanding and following the scriptures but just getting together with their family.

In Hosea 4:6 God says:

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."

Praise God for the things that clearly separate us from this world with Christmas just being one of the more obvious examples. These things make the world look at us funny and make them not want to be around us. These things make them laugh at us and cast us out, and these things cause us to suffer persecution.

These things separate us and I thank God for that.