My kids grow up surrounded by this. I don't want my kids to think that our belief in God is a simple excuse to not give them presents. I teach them that Santa is a type of Satan, that the lie about Santa is part of the great delusion so that the kids who are deceived by this will associate this deception with the Bible and with the rapture.
However, I also teach them about Christ's birth, we sing the various hymns, we read the stories in Luke and we celebrate Christ's birth.
When there are sales on Black Friday I have taken advantage of them to buy things like cell phones. At this time of year I will buy new winter clothes and sweaters. However, I see no reason to wait until the 25th to give them to the kids, that seems stupid to me. So my kids, like other kids have nice new clothes to wear, they have other things that I think are necessary. Many of the things we get we do so after the 25th to take advantage of those sales.
There is absolutely nothing given to the idol, no tree, no cookies, no stockings, no lies about the present being from Santa, and no respect given to the 25th.
10 Hear what the Lord says to you, people of Israel. 2 This is what the Lord says:
“Do not learn the ways of the nations
or be terrified by signs in the heavens,
though the nations are terrified by them.
3 For the practices of the peoples are worthless;
they cut a tree out of the forest,
and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel.
4 They adorn it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so it will not totter.
5
Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field,
their idols cannot speak;
they must be carried
because they cannot walk.
Do not fear them;
they can do no harm
nor can they do any good.”
8 They are all senseless and foolish;
they are taught by worthless wooden idols.
9 Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish
and gold from Uphaz.
What the craftsman and goldsmith have made
is then dressed in blue and purple—
all made by skilled workers.
14 Everyone is senseless and without knowledge;
every goldsmith is shamed by his idols.
The images he makes are a fraud;
they have no breath in them.
15 They are worthless, the objects of mockery;
when their judgment comes, they will perish.
.
Is 44: 14
14 He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. 15 Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. 16 Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” 17 And the rest of it he
makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
So this is very much about reading apprehension and common sense. Easily disproved that a Christmas tree is being spoken of here. There are two types of Christmas trees, one you get at the store, or you go cut one down, or perhaps you go to a lot. When you bring whichever tree home, you stick it up in a corner of your house. You do not have "a skilled goldsmith or craftsman" make it into something else.
Goldsmith is a person who forges things out of gold, (perhaps covers things in gold)
Craftsman a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative.
Both of them make and craft items. They take an item and change it to something else. If I hire someone to build me a shed. They go into the forest to get the trees and start making a shed. No, they do not. Something happens between the time the tree is taken from the forest and it ends up at Lowes. A skilled craftsman, just like the Bible says, crafts the tree into something else. So together the goldsmith and the craftsman make the tree into an idol. How do we know what an idol is, what it is used for? The Bible tells us...
he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it.
He falls down before the idol he has "made", not the tree. The tree was the means to an end. The tree wasn't the idol, the tree was crafted/made into an idol. Very easy to understand. So he falls down before the "idol" that has been fashioned. The tree was used for 2 different things 1. for fuel 2. as an idol. So he falls down before the idol and then what?
he falls down to it and worships it...
Worship -the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity.
Ok children let's follow along. The tree is taken from the forest, a craftsman makes it into an idol the goldsmith covers the idol in gold. The man falls down before the crafted idol and worships it as a DEITY. Step one, he gets a tree, step 2, he makes an idol his god 3. he falls down and worships it as a deity. And then what?
He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
He prays and talks to the idol, his god. He tells the idol " you are my god. " Then he makes a request of his god, deliver me! Not only does he fall down before it, he worships it, calls it his God and then makes requests of it, fully expecting it to answer! And Jer. says that like talking to a scarecrow and expecting it to speak. As we discuss and run through the verses we can see and understand that this in no way is talking about a Christmas tree. A Christmas tree is a decoration. In no way do these verses lend themselves into thinking a Christmas tree is an idol. A simple study of what the Word says, not what we wish it to say, bears this out. The tree is not an idol.
