Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Carl Kerby: Biblical Answers To 12 Christmas Questions

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Carl Kerby: Biblical Answers To 12 Christmas Questions · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending biblical Christianity.
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  No topic, off limits.
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  And now, here's your host, David Fierazzo.
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  Well, it's getting there, friends, day by day.
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  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas unless you're in the Green Bay area where we
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  have no snow.
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  But Merry Christmas season nonetheless, to all of you, we're going to talk about a book
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  about Christmas questions about Christmas that you need to have answers for for some conversations
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  that you might be having.
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  And I want to remind you, there's my book, Books Make Great Christmas Gifts.
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  It's a shameless plug, assault on the image of God is available on Amazon.
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  And Olive Tree Views store, thanks to Jan Marquell.
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  And the book we're going to be talking about today is from Reasons of Hope, Carl Kirby
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  and Juan Valdez, it's called Glad You Asked, answers to 12 tough questions about Christmas
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  that you need answers for.
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  So let's bring in Carl Kirby, founder of Reasons for Hope.
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  He's been on the program before, so and he needs no introduction.
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  Carl, brother, Merry Christmas, good to see you and hear you.
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  Merry Christmas, David, thank you for letting us be here, it truly is a blessing.
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  Oh, you're welcome, hang on, I forgot to lower my chair, there we go, it's better.
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  All right, so Carl, right off the top, what are your big plans for Christmas, do you have
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  a lot of family activities or do you just kind of just finally just rest and things slow
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  down for you?
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  I know you've got an incredibly busy January coming up, so tell us about personalize it for
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  our viewers.
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  But what does the Kirby household look like at Christmas?
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  December is the really a down month for me, I'm still crazy busy because I'm in the process
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  of creating 10 classes for teaching classes at Faith Baptist Bible College, and so there
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  are five day, very intensive, right, module of five days, intense 40 hour, you know, week.
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  And so I've got to create my five days of classes for two classes there and then update
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  the one that I've got.
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  Each and three classes this upcoming summer at Faith Baptist Bible College, so it's busy
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  like that, but I don't travel, which is such a blessing.
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  And so for Christmas, what we do is it's family, man, it's, I mean, I spend so much time
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  on the road during the year, like this year was over 230 days.
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  So Christmas Eve, we all get together and that's when we do our gift exchange, we draw
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  names.
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  So the grandchildren all get multiple gifts, but each of us older folk, we just draw names
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  from a family member and we give a gift and that sort of a thing.
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  And truly just remember a blessing, like I've got a little box at the end of the year
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  where I went on Christmas Eve, it's like, right now, what was the biggest blessing that
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  I had this year?
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  Biggest thing that really kind of sticks out to me, and that goes in the box.
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  And then on Christmas Eve, we pull out the one from last year as a reminder of, hey,
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  this is what happened last year, and then we have one for the next year because I think
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  sometimes we can just get into this rut and Christmas becomes as, you know, about rush,
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  rush, rush, give, give, give, but we forget that some of the greatest blessings are not
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  material at all.
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  It's things that God has done in our lives.
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  And so it's just one of those things of remember what God has really done for this last
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  year and giving thanks that we're in a position that we're at because we're blessed.
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  Yes, we are.
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  Even good traditions and good things can become somewhat mundane or you can go through
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  the motions.
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  So that's great.
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  And I also think with the big of the family you have, it's good to draw names for who
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  buys it like Christmas gift.
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  But so it's one of those blessings, Carl, going to Green Bay, Wisconsin and speaking at
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  the men of Iron Conference, come on.
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  Is that in there?
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  Hey, maybe we had a blast.
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  I think the men that were there were definitely on fire.
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  It was awesome.
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  It was awesome.
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  It was awesome.
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  We are, we are honestly, it's, I know it sounds repetitive, but we are blessed to do what
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  we do.
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  Folks, I wish you could see what happens when, when you get out and you're able to look
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  at this younger generation, you're able to look at men and just really pour into them
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  and, and encourage them because there's so much discouragement in our world today.
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  And so when we can get out and actually say, Hey, here's what the word of God says.
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  Here's what we see.
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  And take a look at this.
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  Here's how we can apply it in this circumstance, the situation.
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  And that's what we got to do with those men of Iron at the conference there.
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  And it was absolutely a, a blast.
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  I love being able to pour into men because that's one of the biggest challenges that
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  our church today is that we have men that aren't being men.
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  We need godly, strong backbone men will understand firm in this culture instead of, you know,
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  just kind of giving up and hiding.
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  We got to get over that.
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  Amen.
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  We need men to lead their families.
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  And first and foremost, know the word of God and how to respond to the many questions people
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  have in this confused and depraved culture we live in.
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  And that goes to your book, great transition.
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  Guys, bring up the homepage of reasons for hope are for h dot com right on the homepage.
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  The book we're going to talk about right now.
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  It's called glad you asked one of the questions right there is Christmas, a pagan holiday.
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  So we just said, Carl, both of us, we celebrate Christmas.
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  I can specifically, more specifically say we celebrate Jesus and the fact, the historical
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  fact of his birth, the word became flesh, dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
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  We celebrate our savior, doesn't matter what day specifically we can get into that.
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  But what about this question that a lot of people wrestle with where can sometimes
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  we're criticized, hey, Christmas is just a pagan holiday.
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  Briefly, we have a lot to cover in your book, glad you asked, how do you respond to that
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  Carl Kirby?
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  Well, I'll tell you, one of the reasons that we did these books in the first place is
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  glad you asked, it's a series.
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  Book number three is getting ready to come out in early next year.
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  And we went to, you know, we do a lot of camps like I did 24 camps, not me personally,
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  but our team, we did 24 camps over 10 weeks this last summer.
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  We hand out index cards on day one and ask the kids right now, was keeping you from selling
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  out for the Lord Jesus Christ, turn it in, that's what we're going to deal with.
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  Well, we thought, let's do a special Christmas edition, we'll probably do an Easter edition
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  in the future as well.
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  But Christmas, the questions that just come up every year and it's the types of things,
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  like you said, is Christmas, is Christmas a pagan holiday?
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  And to give you a short answer, the answer is, yeah, if you look back at the dates that
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  were used, December 25th, originally, there was no argument about it that they were being
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  used to celebrate pagan gods.
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  But here's, I love the gentleman that did the full response in this and I don't want
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  to take away from it.
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  I want you guys to read it because it's a very, very good response.
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  But his, his line that really got me was that, he said, okay, think of it like this.
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  In our world today, June is known for being Pride Month, right?
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  Pride Month.
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  Well, think of it this way.
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  What if Christians finally got together and got unified on something and they said,
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  you know what, no more, we're not allowing this, we're not allowing this anymore.
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  We are not celebrating Pride Month.
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  We're going to celebrate prayer month and Christians were unified around the fact
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  that we are celebrating, we're going to pray every day of the month in June, right?
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  And that's prayer month, a hundred years from now, Pride Month is gone for whatever reason.
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  It's gone, but they're still celebrating prayer month.
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  Would we tell those Christians a hundred years from now that you can't celebrate
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  prayer month because that's a pagan holiday.
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  That was a pagan month.
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  No, I think that what we do is we take that what the world was used for evil.
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  We take it and we twist it back and put it back into God's hands.
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  December 25th, that's another question that's in there was Jesus really born on that day.
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  No, we don't say that.
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  We don't believe that this is a day that was chosen to celebrate.
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  This is what's going on over here.
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  We're taking it back.
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  We're going to give the honor to the Lord Jesus Christ who was born.
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  Was it December 25th?
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  I can pretty much tell you that it was not December 25th because of everything in the scripture
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  and Frank goes through that big time about the timing and the shepherds in the field and
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  all that.
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  There's so much good information, but there's one neat piece that Frank put in there
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  that I had never really thought about.
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  If you look at what happened when John the Baptist heard about the Jesus and the jumping
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  in the womb and that sort of thing, if you go back and you trace when that took place,
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  it's actually about nine months prior to the, and I don't want to give you the one, well,
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  I'm going to have to give you the one.
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  Nine month prior to December 25th is where it goes back to.
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  That could very possibly be when conceived, when Jesus would conceive, which to me is
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  the true birthday anyway, because that's, I believe, when birth is, is that conception.
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  Exactly.
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  That could have very, it could very well have been the conception date because the actual
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  birthday is September, October in that time frame from a biblical perspective.
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  So it's just kind of interesting that when he tracked that back, it was like, whoa, nine
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  months, that's late December, very possible.
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  So again, I'm not trying to be dogmatic on these things.
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  What we want to do is we want to start the conversations because too many of us have
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  nativity scenes in our yards, in our homes, in our churches, and what the nativity scenes
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  are depicting is not biblically accurate.
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  And so I would say that, yes, we have to acknowledge that Christmas, we took it, we're taking
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  it away from the pagans and we're saying, no, we're celebrating the birth of Christ on
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  that day, but it does, it definitely has some roots and some ugly stuff.
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  Yep.
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  And here's the challenge for believers, true believers, here's the challenge year after
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  year.
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  It has become hyper commercialized.
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  Oh, absolutely.
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  So here's the challenge for us to not make it about something that it is not about.
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  Money, gifts, the obligation.
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  We've got to get back to the free gift of Jesus Christ, free gift of eternal life and
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  free is free, right?
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  Yeah.
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  It means we don't pay for it and we don't deserve it necessarily, right?
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  But the father gives us this gift.
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  So yeah, Christians, that's what we struggle with, especially in North America, especially
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  here in the United States of entertainment.
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  I mean, America, we struggle with commercialism.
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  And I mean, it starts on Black Friday, you're thinking, oh my goodness, you better not,
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  when you go out to those Black Friday sales and start elbowing people and stopping over
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  people to get the best sale, I hope you're not wearing a Christian t-shirt.
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  So Carl, your quick comments on what Christians need to guard against during this season?
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  Well, definitely the commercialism and definitely we need to put the focus in the right spot.
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  Think of what Christmas, ultimately, we attribute to Santa Claus, generosity, niceness, right?
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  And all these types of things, well, look, none of those things make any sense of lesson,
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  price to see who he claims to be and God is who he claims to be.
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  Because this whole, let's be nice to people and be kind and polite and give, give, you
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  know, sacrificially give, that means nothing if there is no God.
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  And so let's, let's, let's take those attributes that are given to Santa Claus and give
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  them to who they really belong to.
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  And that's Jesus Christ, God, our loving creator who came and died on a cross for us.
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  So I would say the principles that we see of caring about others and putting others
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  first and, and, and, and joy and happiness, those come from Christ.
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  And so I would just encourage people to remember why we can really have all those things.
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  And that is because of who God is.
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  He did what he said that he did the way that he said that he did it in his word.
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  And so if we can take those things and, and, and start from scripture, then we can truly
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  have peace, joy, happiness and, and sacrificial giving and those types of things.
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  Because now we've got a foundation to build from that's not going to crumble on us when
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  now all of a sudden I give something to somebody and they don't like it.
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  And so they say something mean and then my heart, my, my feelings get all heard and, you
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  know, all that kind of thing.
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  And get over that stuff.
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  It's not about that.
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  It's about being obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ and what he's called us to do.
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  Amen.
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  Amen, brother.
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  So chapter one is Christmas of pagan holiday.
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  That's Andy Stern's dove into that.
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  Chapter two is having a Christmas tree.
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  A sinful practice.
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  That's a Candace Nordene wrote that one.
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  And I love the Christmas tree.
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  I believe it represents the cross of Christ.
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  You, you guys can, you know, talk about that one another time.
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  But when we come back from our quick break, we're going to talk about chapter three,
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  which was written by Carl Kirby.
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  What about parents that teach their kids about Santa Claus?
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  Is that a sin?
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  We'll tackle that one when we come back on World View Matters.
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  Today's show is brought to you by Harbinger's Daily.
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  All right, friends, we're doing our fundraiser between now and Christmas.
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  My tagline keeps speaking the truth about things that matter.
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  And we're talking about the book.
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  Glad you asked answers to 12 tough questions about Christmas that you need answers for.
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  This is from reasons for hope.
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  Carl Kirby is our guest.
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  Remember, books make great Christmas gifts spoken like a true author, right, Carl?
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  So, so chapter three, I love it.
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  I love the fact that you guys dove into this is teaching about Santa a sin.
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  Just give us, I know you don't want to give it all away, but give us some bullet points from that chapter.
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  Well, yeah, absolutely.
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  And if I may say also, folks, really, honestly, support what David is doing here, the monthly gifts, you have no idea.
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  I can say this because I'm in another ministry and I have the worst time raising funds for myself, but I can tell you this.
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  When I run into other people that are doing good ministry, like David is doing, they're talking about tough top,
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  which are bringing in good people to handle these things.
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  Biblically, I'm going to say it publicly, support them.
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  They need the monthly gifts.
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  I would, I would much rather have a bunch of monthly givers in just a one time gift.
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  So help them to do what they're doing.
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  And that mug, so it is a great gift to hang it out there.
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  So please consider that the, the, the whole thing about Santa Claus, is it a sin?
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  It can be.
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  Yeah, there's no doubt it can be.
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  So here's the way that we approached it.
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  I didn't get saved into my children like six and seven years old.
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  Up into that point, we had done the whole Santa Claus thing.
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  And for the first years of Christian, we did the Santa Claus thing.
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  But then as I started growing in my faith, the thing that struck me was one of these days,
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  my children are going to find out that Santa Claus is not real.
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  And I hate it.
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  It's a spoiler alert.
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  I'm not trying to break anybody's bubble here, but he's not a real thing.
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  I mean, it's at least not what we see in our world today, right?
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  And so if I am telling my children all about Santa Claus and then they find out that it's not true,
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  then God, or I'm sorry, dad lied to us about Santa.
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  But what else is he lying about?
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  And what I see so many times as I kind of alluded to in the previous section there is that we've basically turned Jesus into a many of Jesus.
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  I mean, he knows what you're thinking, knows what if you've been bad or good, he knows if you're a sleeper wake.
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  I mean, we've turned him into this omniscient being.
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  And there's only one of those.
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  And that's God himself.
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  And so if I'm doing that with Jesus or with a Santa, then maybe they're doing it with God.
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  And I was like, no, we can't do that.
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  So we had to sit down with our children and said, look, here's the reality.
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  And we went through it.
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  And why we believe that and why I was taking this now to say, look, I don't want you guys to ever think that that's going to mislead you in any way, shape, or form.
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  So that's why we're doing this.
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  But I had to lay down the law and say, look, your job is not to be the Santa police.
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  Your job is not to go and every child that talks about Santa just break them down and start, you know, look, this is a lie.
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  That's not our job.
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  We, we are, how do we say this?
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  Why is the serpent harmless as a dove?
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  If somebody asks you a point blank question, you do not dodge it.
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  You speak the truth and love, right?
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  We do that.
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  We can't lie just to make somebody else feel better.
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  I don't care what the topic is.
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  But I don't need to be the guy that's the, I'm going to go in and break everybody's chops about this thing.
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  Let's, you know, okay, fine, boom, walk away, leave it alone.
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  But if it's pushed, you've got to take a stand.
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  And here's why, but you're doing it with a heart that cares and not a heart that's trying to show everybody how wrong they are.
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  So yes, teaching Jesus can't absolutely teach you Santa.
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  I should say, forgive me, David.
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  I keep mixing that up teaching Santa absolutely can't be a sin because it's like anything else.
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  We can, we can put a whole lot of things in front of the door of Jesus Christ and it becomes a sin.
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  I liked taking and talking about who the historical Santa was and what he wasn't.
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  And so that's kind of what I did in that chapter was.
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  Let's go back.
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  I mean, all the way back to 266, you know, A.D., the original st.
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  quote unquote, Nick and this and this and this.
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  Because what you're going to find, man, is that Santa Claus.
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  Which one are we talking about?
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  Because some of the Santa Claus's were pretty stinking scary, man.
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  I mean, there were some scary dudes that put, oh, man, there's one story in there that you don't want your children to read about that story.
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  I didn't put it in there, but I just put the title of it.
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  That was a pretty bad guy.
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  So which Santa are we talking about?
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  And how are we, how are we approaching it?
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  If we're for elevating him above Christ, we're in trouble.
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  So there was more than one Saint Nicholas or is that what you're saying?
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  Well, there's, there is the original quote unquote Saint Nicholas, but it's been taken and twisted in so many ways.
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  And it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like that telephone game, right?
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  You whisper a story, whisper a story, whisper a story.
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  And then by the time you get to the 15th person, the story is completely and totally altered.
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  So you got a bunch of versions of Santa.
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  I mean, you got the Coca-Cola version and the red suit, the plump dude drink of the Coke with the red cheek.
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  Then you got the, you got the mean nasty dude that's putting lumps of coal and kids the shoes.
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  And I mean, you got a bunch of versions of Santa Claus.
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  And I would just say don't put any of them ahead of Christ, because none of them compare to them.
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  So this is, it's a family by family decision if you're Christians.
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  Yeah, what to do with this, but thou shalt not lie.
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  Don't thou shalt not bear bear false witness.
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  I mean, I know what, if you're young mom and dad watching right now, you're thinking,
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  well, what about all my kids' friends?
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  And I'm going to say, okay, there's an excuse.
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  And what does the Bible say about whether you should tell the truth or not?
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  You know, so not to be overly convicting here, but be very careful with that.
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  Because as, you know, some people say, and when they get older, you start telling them more about Jesus and the Bible,
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  they're going to think about, well, what about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?
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  How do you respond to that, Carl?
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  Some people say, well, we taught them about Santa and the Easter Bunny, and you also taught me about this guy named Jesus.
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  And, you know, what do you, how do you respond to that?
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  That was my biggest, that was my, the biggest turning point in me for why we made the decision to no longer do the Santa Claus thing.
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  And you're all right, this is a, this is a family thing.
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  I mean, parents have to take the responsibility for their children, their family, what they're going to raise and how they're going to teach.
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  I would, I would just throw the caution out there that you, I don't think you want to be in that position where someday your child comes to you and says,
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  but you said this and this, and that's not true.
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  And then I'm going to try and work my way around that.
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  Yeah.
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  Anytime I'm having to jump through hula hoops to kind of, to explain why I did something, I don't want to do that.
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  I'm too heavy to tap dance anyway if I try tap dance and I break an ankle.
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  So I, I just believe the best way, the best way for us to do it is to be straightforward, honest, and, and have a heart to genuinely cares.
• 20:38
  And that's the point that I was trying to, trying to make is like, look, yes, even when we speak that truth, we speak it in love, we, we explain why.
• 20:47
  But I don't need to be a jerk about this, but I think it is an absolutely very valid concern, which is why we changed the way that we did things.
• 20:57
  So, and you want to encourage your kids if you're raising them in a Christian home, meaning you believe the Bible and you're not going to tell them, let's just say you don't want to tell them about Santa Claus.
• 21:07
  Don't encourage them to spoil it for other kids like their friends, right? Don't let them be the spoilers.
• 21:13
  Carl, the other chapter is some of the other ones we're running out of time already. It goes by so fast.
• 21:18
  Chapter seven to the narratives of Jesus birth contradict one another. Chapter eight was Jesus actually born December 22. What kind of touched on that already?
• 21:27
  Nine. Why does it matter that Mary was a virgin and see going back now, chapter four, why don't Jehovah's Witnesses celebrate Christmas? But let's touch on.
• 21:38
  Oh, did Jesus really have three wise men? That's fastening because of the kings and it only mentions gold, frankincense and murder doesn't mention, mentioned how many wise men?
• 21:49
  But let's go to number six, because you wrote number six, chapter six in the book, glad you asked questions about Christmas. Is Jesus birth story based on a myth or a rip off of Horus, Mithras and other Egyptian God?
• 22:03
  So Carl, touch on that, tease us on that chapter for us.
• 22:06
  And I love that topic. It was probably about five, six years ago, where you know how it is every Christmas you get these memes that come out and essentially go something like this born on December 25th, born of a virgin, had disciples died, resurrected on the third day.
• 22:26
  All of these things, but then at the bottom it says, but it's not Jesus. It's Horus, it's ISIS, it's Mithra, it's Dionysus, it's any one of these Egyptian gods and they all predate a Christ.
• 22:35
  So the teaching is is that well, see Jesus wasn't real. He just ripped off all these other Egyptian gods. And so there was a huge movie that came out that taught this stuff.
• 22:49
  I mean, you had Bill Maher that came out and he did a movie, he interviewed the guy who played Jesus at the old Holy Land experience in Florida.
• 22:56
  I felt horrible for that guy. They just did terribly. He's like, oh, so this, this and the guy's like, yeah, yeah. And he said, well, that belonged to Horus and that belonged to ISIS and that belonged to Mithra and the Christian guy's like, oh, really? No clue. So we see this every Christmas.
• 23:13
  It comes out as thrown at us and Jesus ripping these guys off. So I just started going and doing the research.
• 23:18
  And I was blown out of the water. And you know what? I have to tell you it's a, I'm ashamed to admit this, but there was some ripping off going on.
• 23:26
  But it wasn't Jesus ripping them off. It was them ripping Jesus off because what I found was it's a great quote from a non-Christian, a Swedish historian who said basically that there is no evidence for any, any God prior to Jesus Christ with the virgin birth.
• 23:42
  And the resurrection, there's none of that. What happened is that is Christianity started to popularize and these, the, the quote unquote worshipers from these other temples started leaving and becoming Christians.
• 23:53
  Well, these other religions are like, hey, hold up. Well, our God did that. And our God was born on the of a virgin. And, and in some cases, I got to tell you, that's true. You know, that's true because Mithra.
• 24:05
  Mithra is out of all the other gods that we talk about the Egyptian gods. He's the only one that was born of a virgin. Now the others work, right?
• 24:12
  Well, hold up. Mithra was born of a virgin. Doesn't that give you some doubt, Carl? No, because Mithra was born from a rock.
• 24:19
  So technically, yes, he was born of a virgin because rocks as far as I know can't have sex. But when you start, and I, what I literally did is December 25th, born in December 25th, resurrection, disciples. I just wrote a list of these attributes to Christ, right?
• 24:34
  And then I went to all these other gods and started doing check marks and the only one, the only one that there's a lot of check marks that they do it is born on December 25th.
• 24:44
  Well, we already talked about that. We don't believe Christ was born on December 25th. So if all those others were born on December 25th, so what?
• 24:51
  I don't care about that because we're not saying that so Jesus didn't rip them off, right? It's like, right? Here's the, here's the point. The resurrection, none of them, none of them are anything close to what Christ is.
• 25:05
  The, the, the, the, the, having the, the disciples, guys, I encourage people to go do the research yourself, use secular sources, and you're going to find out very quickly that all these supposed similarities are not very similar at all.
• 25:17
  And yeah, you can find out a lot more than what we had time to cover here in the book. Glad you asked. It's available at R4H. That's reasons for hope.com R F O R H. And you can get the book right there. There's a big plug for it on the front page.
• 25:35
  So Carl, we appreciate your time. And these are important questions. And I'm thinking, boy, the rock. There's so many. And by the way, any old religions and world religions that are based on a human being, they died and their bones are on a tomb somewhere.
• 25:50
  Not Jesus. Why is there so much animosity and hostility toward the Christian faith, the biblical world, because Jesus is the only God who is alive, the one true living God. And we have a gift. And we can share this gift of salvation from Christ with others. This Christmas, your final thoughts, Carl.
• 26:12
  That's the key that I think that we do. The gifts that we should be giving as a gift of the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Tell people the truth. Show them in the word how they can trust the Lord and they can have true peace. Because that's the only thing that's going to give us real peace.
• 26:26
  The fact that God is who he says he is. He did what he said that he did the way that he said that he did it. And he loved us so much that while we said, no, thank you. He came and he died on a cross course. That's true hope. And everybody can have that. Just turn your turn yourself over to Christ.
• 26:40
  Thanks, Carl. We appreciate you, your work, the debunked videos, the apologetics, your team that you've assembled there at Reasons for Hope. Talk about some heavy hitters. So thank you. Thank you. And Merry Christmas to your brother. Good seeing you again. Merry Christmas. Thank you.
• 26:55
  Alright, you bet. Carl Kirby Reasons for Hope. And we do have reasons for hope because of Jesus and what he did. But regardless of what day you celebrated, we just happen to have a federal holiday December 25th. Merry Christmas to you. It is a season. But remember the reason for the season. Make it about Jesus and not about other things. And that's hard in this day and age. So friends, thanks again so much. I think let's see where are we next week. Chad Davidson, good fight radio.
• 27:23
  Julian Appling, Wisconsin Family Council, John Haller, prophecy expert. We're having so many great guests. It's a pleasure to bring you World View Matters. God bless you, Merry Christmas. And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.