Greetings in Yahshuah Ben Yah/Yahshuah HaMashiach/the Lord Jesus Christ, Nathan and Vera,
I am responding to your recent greeting to all, wishing them a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukah and a Joyous Kwanza.
Nate (and Vera), I want to tell you the great error in what you do as Jews who profess faith in God. Firstly, Christmas is a pagan festival, originating long before Jesus Christ, in honor of deities concocted in the minds of the heathen, as promoted by spiritual powers (demons) influencing them to their idolatrous practices. By Moses and by Jeremiah, as well as by others, YHWH strictly forbade any association with these gods or forms of worship and practices. As it is written:
“Take heed to yourself that you do not become snared by following them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not ask about their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods, that I too may do likewise?” (Deuteronomy 12:30 MKJV)
And: “Hear the Word which Jehovah speaks to you, O house of Israel. So says Jehovah, Do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be terrified at the signs of the heavens; for the nations are terrified at them. For the customs of the people are vain…” (Jeremiah 10:1-3 MKJV).
And: “But they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like the neck of their fathers who did not believe in Jehovah their God. And they rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He testified against them. And they went after the vain thing, and became vain, and after the nations around them, concerning whom Jehovah had charged them not to do like them” (2 Kings 17:14-15 MKJV).
Christmas has nothing whatsoever to do with Yahshuah/Jesus Christ. God has nothing to do with Kwanza. These are not innocent celebrations or festivities, Nate. All suffer the consequences of partaking in these apparently harmless activities. I know; I was there and now I am here. Being there only, I didn’t know, but where I am now, I can and do know. God once spoke to me in 1976, telling me His people were hurting because they were indulging in all these things, and doing them in His Name, thinking to please Him. They are grieving, not pleasing Him.
Why would you encourage these things, contrary to the Torah, as though you were ignorant of, or wilfully disregarding the Torah, while at the same time presuming to go to the synagogue and worshiping the One Who condemned these things?
I will tell you why. Perhaps you haven’t known any differently, but you are choosing the acceptance of man over the praise of God, and the pleasures of this world over the fulfilment of the spirit.
Nate and Vera, I don’t say these things to fault you. You are already at fault, know it or not, and I tell you how, as a friend, so that you will know and seek to honor the Creator, and not men who choose, whether ignorantly or otherwise, to worship and revel as they please, against His will. It is not easy, to be sure, but it is necessary, if one will live.
Victor
Sent to Nate on December 12, 2004