Him as your own personal Saviour, it becomes a sin rather than a virtue or blessing, to even celebrate the birth of Him whom you reject and nail to the Cross once again. What a sad, sad spectacle all this' presents when we realize that sinners who believe neither the Book nor the Person of the Book, the Lord Jesus, who deny the truth of Almighty God, and curse and swear and take the Name of Christ in vain the year around, every day, and live for self and live for sin, and never darken a single church door, will, when Christmas time comes around, go piously to church, will join in the singing of carols, and even listen to the story of His birth, may even enter into the pageantry and the celebration, while they them selves have never accepted Him, nor ever intend to serve Him once the day is finally over. We have lost Jesus, and in His place the world has set up a fat, old, rollick ing, jovial fellow by the name of Santa Claus, who has made men forget that Christmas was originally designed to call our attention to another, even the Ancient of Days. To millions upon millions of children in our Am erican homes, Jesus will never even once be mentioned or thought of, but instead, the wholly fictitious and my thical character of old Saint Nick will be placed on the pedestal of worship, and Jesus will, indeed, be lost once again amidst the ritual of the season. CHRISTMAS COMMERCIALIZED Then again, in addition to all of these other evils which have crept into the history of the church with its demoralizing and degenerating influences by which we have lost the Lord Jesus Christ, there is the commercial ization of this day which was originally a religious day and one designed to be spent in self-examination and exercises of the Spirit, to make us more spiritual and more like Him who came that we might have eternal life. And so we find that thousands of people who give no serious thought to the lost Child, Jesus, are looking only toward this particular season of the year for an upturn in their business, for added sales to get them out of the red column of the ledger. They make profit and market of the superstitions and the sentimentality of Christians and the gullibility of the general public, crazed by the holiday spirit, to unload their surplus stock and fatten their pocketbooks. If all of the millions upon millions, and probably billions of dollars which will be spent for worthless, useless trinkets within the next few weeks to be used for one day, and then only to be cast aside, could be turned into channels of relief, we could go a long ways in taking care of the hungering millions in Europe, or could be turned into the noble channel of preaching the gospel which only can make men free and happy and satisfied^it would hasten both the material and spiritual victory and the coming in of peace for a world tom by strife at this very time when they are cele brating the birth of the Prince of Peace. What place are you going to give the Lord Jesus Christ in your life during this particular season? Are you going to place Him in the center and worship Him, and before you even think of giving anyone else a single gift, give Him the gift which He asks of you, when He says, “Young man, young woman, give me your heart.” The greatest gift that God gave was the Lord Jesus Christ, and the greatest gift that you can return is yourself, by believing devotion, in receiving Him, the Saviour of the world. But before you can give yourself to Him, you must receive Him first of all. “ To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name.”
dancing and worldly celebrations, as well as in a great many thousands of homes where the greatest preparations are made for the celebrating of this great holiday, Jesus will once again be lost and fail to receive the merited attention which He demands as the Giver of every bless ing not only at this season of the year, but every day of our sojourn here. Not only is this true in the individual life and in our social life and in business life, for no other day has degenerated and been debauched as much as Christmas day, but it will be true in a great many of our churches which call themselves by the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amidst the ritual and the program and the creed, the Lord Jesus Christ is too often lost. How much of the ceaseless activity of the great num bers of our church members in getting ready for the celebration of Christmas, even in our churches, getting the Christmas tree and the lights and the manger all fixed up, with its program and with its!1gifts, will only serve to obscure the Person of Him who is God’s great Gift to us. I am wondering how many people who seldom darken a church door will go to church on Christmas day only because it has become the custom of the year, some sort of a religious exercise which has some merit and some standing with God. Others will go because they enjoy the beautiful programs and stirring singing and the wonderful music, together with the elaborate pagean try which usually characterizes the activities of the day, but lost the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that thousands who came to the feast on that day when Jesus was lost in the temple, saw only the ritual, saw Jesus; but saw Him as just a little lad, but nothing more, just the Son of a carpenter from Nazareth in Galilee. Instead of taking our Bibles and reading the precious record of how He came to be bom as a Babe in a stable, how He was reviled, how He was spit upon, how He was accused, how He was persecuted, how He was crucified amidst the pushing, milling mob at the Cross, we will be milling and pushing around instead, in the dime stores and the department stores and the gift stores, until with feet burning, and headache, and heart palpitating, and nerves frayed to the very breaking point, and our patience exhausted, we come to Christmas day with our temper burned down to the very last quarter of an inch of fuse, before we are ready to blow up, and then we think we are having a blessing. But there is an even sadder aspect to the Holiday Season. To a great many people the season of Christ mas time becomes an excuse for indulging in sin which they shrink from during the other months of the year. It becomes the occasion for some to break down all the bars of restraint and make it a day of debauchery and sinning and licentiousness about which they would have qualms of conscience were it at any other season of the year. To many people it will mean the casting off of every restraint of decency and order, and it is safe to say there will be more highway accidents, more deaths on the road, more drunken driving, and more violence than we have seen for a long, long time. There is no season of the entire year that has so far departed from the real spirit it was designed to express when God gave to us the Son of God, the gift of His love. Strictly speaking, the unconverted, the worldly, those who do not recognize the Lordship of Jesus Christ, ought not to celebrate Christ mas at all. It is the birth of the Saviour. When the Lord Jesus Christ was announced by the angel, he said unto Mary, “Thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and shalt call His Name JESUS, for He shall SAVE His people from their sin.” That was the purpose for which He came into the world, and to all of you who have not received
DECEMBER, 1961
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