It would be nice if we could celebrate the birth of Jesus at a time of year more appropriate to the time when He was born in Bethlehem. December is the one month of the year when it would not be appropriate because the Bible record says that “there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8).
It’s cold and rainy in Bethlehem in December, so it would be impossible for shepherds to “abide” [camp] in the field” overnight. Bethlehem is in the Northern Hemisphere; December is winter.
Then why and how did a date in December become accepted as the date of Jesus’ birth?
The answer is interesting:
The early church “left [their] first love,” says the record in Revelation 2 under the symbol of the first “church” of the seven great epochs of the church throughout history, “Ephesus.” It was in that first era of the church that the enemy of righteousness sought to pervert the pure and simple truths of the gospel by introducing compromising ideas from paganism.
One of those extra-biblical ideas was the observance of Sunday in place of the biblical seventh day of the week as the church’s day of rest and worship. (In God’s holy law of ten commandments, the Lord Himself wrote in tables of stone that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ... ,” Ex. 20:8-11).
The Roman Empire was engrossed in sun worship in the time of the early church. Some critics unwisely decided that keeping the Lord’s holy day the seventh, smacked of Judaism; and thinking that they could attract more supposed “converts” to the church by abandoning observing the biblical Sabbath, they welcomed the “day of the sun,” the first day of the week, and their so-called “Christian sabbath.”
Now we have come to the last days of earth’s history; now is the time for us to prepare for the second coming of Christ, when He shall come in the clouds of heaven (Acts 1:9-11).
The Lord commands us to “come out of her [Babylon], My people” (so that not a trace of Babylon’s false teachings are left). That is why worldwide a great movement is taking place when literally millions are abandoning “the day of the sun” and restoring the true Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh-day.
Come and join them!
They also realize that the Lord Jesus never told us to try to remember His birth by keeping any day for its observance; let Him be born anew in us—that’s what He wants to happen!
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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