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But, honestly, I just want you to get the facts before you just have somebody quote to you Jeremiah chapter 10 verses 2 through 4 out of context and lie to you about what Jeremiah 10 says. You know, I just want you to know what the chapter actually says, okay? And after you know what the chapter actually says, go make your own opinion. You know? And if you still think that Christmas trees are bad, then go right ahead. But let's at least look at the facts tonight and that's all I want to do is present the biblical facts tonight. In Jeremiah chapter 10 verse 1, the Bible says, 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 workmen with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold, they fasten it with nails and with hammers that it move not. Right there is where the anti-Christmas people stop reading. And they just take these couple of verses out of context, they stop reading and they just take verse 3 and 4 and they say, look, it is a vain heathen custom to cut down a tree, okay, and to deck it with silver and gold and to fasten it with nails and hammers. And here's what they say. They say that's what you're doing when you decorate a Christmas tree. They say you've cut down a tree and you're basically decking it with gold and silver, you know, and they're saying because you put a gold and a silver ornament on it. Okay, that's their view. But that is not what this scripture is talking about. Now if you stop reading right there, you know, you can use that to convince people of your point, but that's not what it's really about, because keep reading. Look at verse 5. It says, 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, for as much as there is none like unto thee, O Lord. Now stop. What this is talking about, and I'm going to prove it to you from the rest of the chapter, this is talking about cutting down a tree in the forest and carving it into an idol that is silver or gold plated. Now when the Bible says that it is decked with gold and silver, that is not saying hanging a silver ball on it. When you deck something over with silver, you are covering it with silver. Like for example the deck on your house. Your house might have a deck. It's a covering, is what that means. And what the Bible is saying here is that they're carving it into an idol because look, in verse 5, he says, they are upright as the palm tree, but speak not. Look, a Christmas tree can speak or walk or do good or evil, because it's a tree, right? But there are people who carve a tree into an idol of a false god and they think that that false god can speak or walk or do these things. Now keep reading. Jump down if you would to verse 8. It says, but they are altogether brutish and foolish. The stock, talking about basically the stump of the tree that's being carved, is a doctrine of vanities. Watch. Silver spread into plates. Now look, is this a round silver ornament hanging on the tree? Is this a silver garland? No. It's what I said, a silver, it's silver spread into plates because it's being silver plated or gold plated, okay? So it says silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workmen and of the hands of the founder, okay? Jump down to verse 14. It says every man is brutish in his knowledge. Every founder is confounded by the what? Graven image. For his molten image is falsehood and there is no breath in him. They are vanity. Now look, you can't just take two verses out of context. You have to read the whole chapter. This whole chapter is talking about the same subject. Notice the same words are being used. Look at verse 3. Okay, I want you to just, and if you have a pen you may want to underline a few key words here, okay? In verse 3 the Bible says the customs of the people are what? Vain and then it says they cut down a tree, right? Okay, now if you jump down to where he's talking about the graven image, he says in verse 15 they are vanity. Okay, so what is vain? He says it's vain to cut down a tree and deck it with gold and silver and think that it can walk or talk or do anything. It's not like the true God. It's a false God. Later on he says that these graven images or molten images are vain. They are vanity. Okay, he's talking about the same thing. Up earlier he said in verse 9, silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workmen of the hands of the founder. See the word founder? Jump down to verse 14. Every man is brutish in his knowledge. Every founder is confounded by the graven image. So if you look at this chapter, there's a continuity of thought here. We are on the same subject in verse 14 that we were in verse 3. He's going on and on about the fact that they are carving idols out of wood. What does it mean to grave, to engrave something? You know, if I brought in something to an artisan and said I want this engraved, they're going to carve my name into it or they're going to carve some kind of wording into it. Okay, what is molten? Well molten comes from the word melting. You melt down metal. You melt silver. You melt gold. A graven image is an image that is carved of wood. A molten image is an image that is made of molten metal, okay? And what he's saying here is that they are carving a wooden idol and then overlaying it, decking it with molten gold and silver and they believe that it is like unto the God of Israel. Because you know what? People today will often compare the God of the Bible to other gods. They'll say, you know, why should I believe the God of the Bible any more than I believe in the God of Islam or Buddha or whatever. But there's no God like unto the true God and the idol is vanity. It can't talk. It has to be carried. And God makes it clear he never wants us to make any image of him. Now, does the Bible specifically prohibit graven and molten images? Oh yeah, it's one of the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Okay, so there's no question that graven images and molten images are sinful. Now that matches perfectly with what Jeremiah 10 is teaching. Preaching against graven and molten images. Now to sit there and say this is a Christmas tree and people will even say a Christmas tree is a graven image, well let me ask you something. Where's the engraving? Where is it carved? In what way, shape, or form is it carved in any way? Answer me that. It is just a tree. You brought the tree and you put it in the house. There's no carving. Nothing has been molten or melted. And look, it's not an image. What's an image? It's something that's made like unto an animal or a human or an angel or a god. But hold on a second. They'll say well, and go to Isaiah chapter 60, they'll say well, you know, okay, it's not a graven image. You got me Pastor Anderson. Because look, can anybody actually say that a Christmas tree is a graven image when it has zero graving and zero molten? Okay, no. But they just say yeah, but Jeremiah 10 said not to do it. No, because we read the whole chapter and it was clear that the tree that they're cutting down in the forest becomes a graven image. Cutting down trees is not wrong, you know, unless you're part of the Environmental Protection Agency or something, you know, I don't see how you can say there's anything wrong with going to the forest and cutting down a tree, okay? The sin wasn't cutting down the tree. The sin was then graving the tree, carving the tree into an idol and overlaying it with gold and silver that it might be worshipped. That was their sin, okay? But people will say yeah, but it's just, they'll say it's just a pagan tradition to bring up a tree into the house. And people have even said, you know, oh these pagans would decorate the inside of their house with greenery. Good night. I mean doesn't everybody, I mean is a houseplant wrong? I mean look back there, everybody turn around. See that palm tree back there that's outside my office door? Is that pagan because we brought a tree into the building? Oh, that's pagan, you know, because pagans would bring in trees into the building. You know, I think everybody's probably had houseplants, whether they're pagan or not. Whether you're Christian or Jew or Muslim or Hindu, I think every culture in the world that has ever existed in the history of mankind has probably brought a plant into their house at some point. So to sit there and say well, Christmas trees, you know, trees were brought in the house by pagans. Well you know, pagans wore pants. You know, pagans drink milk. Pagans you know, I mean it just doesn't make any sense. I mean a houseplant is universal. But not only that, even God's houses decorate with palm trees, number one. You say, yeah, yeah, but not the pine tree. Palm trees, one thing. But oh, that pine tree. And people have said it's evergreen trees that are pagan. Evergreen trees are the ones that represent pagan. Okay, well look what the Bible says about the pine tree. Let's just look up what the Bible says about pine trees, okay? Isaiah chapter 60 verse 13 says, the glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, are those not the two types of trees people use for Christmas trees? I remember when I was a kid, when you'd go to buy a Christmas tree, it was like, okay, there's two choices. You know, the Douglas fir or the pine. And those are your two choices, right? So what does the Bible say about these wicked, godless trees? It says, the glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together to beautify the place of my sanctuary. Now look, is this not God saying he's going to decorate his holy place with a pine tree and a fir tree? No, pagan. But see, this was written about 2800 years ago. So about 2800 years ago, God said he's going to beautify the place of his sanctuary with a pine tree and a fir tree. But there's no way that that could be where it came from, no. It came from pagan Germany a few hundred years ago. Now look, when you study these things, it doesn't hold water. Now if you just go on the internet, you can find plenty of people that will just quote those two verses from Jeremiah all by themselves. They're not going to show you Isaiah 60 verse 13. They're not going to show you the rest of the chapter in Jeremiah 10 where he explains what it's actually about. So say what you want about Christmas trees, but honestly, examining the scripture shows that it just doesn't hold water as far as the Jeremiah 10 interpretation. I read this online, the Christmas tree is a 17th century German invention, University of Bristol Hutton told Live Science, but it clearly derives from the pagan practice of bringing greenery indoors to decorate. Okay now look, I just don't think that bringing greenery indoors to decorate is pagan. I mean yesterday, I was trimming the tree outside my house because my tree was hanging into the street and it has to be cleared. The law says that it can't hang into the street at all. So I was cutting the tree and Miriam, the little pagan that she is, she started cutting off these big pieces of bark, remember Miriam, and she was peeling these really nice pieces of bark and she said, I'm going to make decorations out of these. And you know what, she even said she was going to make Christmas decorations out of them. And I mean, she just came up with that on her own. She was just peeling these big pieces of bark and she said they were pretty because when you peeled them back, they looked really neat on the inside. She's like, these are cool, let's decorate with these. I mean look, people bring seashells into their house to decorate if they live by the ocean. People bring birds' eggs, plants, dried flowers, dried fruit, none of this is pagan in origin. It's just normal decorating practice. And I bet you probably, you know, a lot of these anti-Christmas people probably have some greenery in their house, whether it's a potted plant or whatever. So it's just silly to say that it's wrong with really no Bible to back it up. Because we've debunked Jeremiah 10 and we've even shown a positive mention of having furs and pines in the house of God. In Isaiah 63...