About the Author

Thomas Ray Floyd was born in 1953 in Simpson County, Mississippi, the son of Roy Thomas Floyd and Lina Sue Shows Floyd. Thomas Ray's mother was a member of a Primitive Baptist church, and he cut his teeth on the doctrines of distinguishing grace.

When he was a small boy, his father was converted to Christ and became a member of a Missionary Baptist Church. Thomas Ray joined the church of his father when he was 13 years old, and thought of himself as a Christian. The doctrines of grace that he had heard as a child continued to be precious to him and when he became an adult, he joined a Primitive Baptist Church. When he was 27, Thomas Ray made his first effort to preach the gospel in public and was ordained to the full functions of the ministry in 1985. In 1986 he was convinced under the preaching of Rolfe Barnard (by tapes from Mt. Olive Tape Library), the written sermons of Spurgeon, and the ministry of Elder Zack Guess that he had been a false professor and cried out in agony of soul to the Lord Jesus Christ to have mercy and truly save him. And He did! Floyd then began to preach the gospel as he had been taught of the Lord.

Floyd has pastored churches in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee and until recently was pastor of a church plant known as "Particular Baptist Fellowship." He and his wife Brenda presently attend Zion Baptist Church at Polkville, Mississippi, pastored by Elder Glen Hopkins. The pulpit ministry of Zion Baptist Church can be heard at Sermonaudio.com.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Christmas- A Demon Holiday

(Article for publication week of 12-11- AD 2014)
 
" 'Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate', saith the Lord, 'and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you' " (II Corinthians 6:17). We have entered into that season of the year when the professed church enters into a strange alliance with the world. Instead of separating from the world as we are commanded, the professed church goes right along with the "Christ-mass" (its real name as we shall show). Time was when Baptists and Protestants generally did not observe the "Christ-mass." In fact the observance of the "christ - mass" was forbidden by civil statute in many Christian communities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. "Christ-mass" is not a Christian observance, but is rather as I say in my title, a "demon holiday", and all the "holy water" in the world will never make the practice Christian.
First of all there is not a single scripture that authorises the observance of Christmas. The Second Commandment forbids us to worship God except as He has commanded. Man- made worship is will worship (Colossians 2:22-23), and is not a matter of indifference, but a great sin before God. I challenge you to search the scriptures and you will see that the Bible is silent on the subject of "Christmas." Neither our Lord nor His Apostles ever commanded us to set aside a "holy" day to observe the day of His birth. The scriptures do not give us the date of His birth, and we can be very certain that if the Church was supposed to have a celebration on that day, the scriptures would have given us that information. Most sound authorities generally agree that Christ was not born on December 25th. Bishop Ussher believed He was born in the Fall, probably September, but even that learned man could not prove absolutely the exact Day of the Birth of Christ. The truth is that God has only commanded us to keep one day holy, and that is the weekly Sabbath (the first day of the week since our Lord's resurrection). It is notable that many people who will break the Sabbath all year long, will insist on having a day off on the 25th of December (and nowadays sometimes the whole week). As our country and state and county has accepted man made "holy days", they have at the same time desecrated the Holy Sabbath.
Some will try to argue that Christians are free to practice anything not specifically forbidden by the scriptures. This reasoning (known as the "normative principle" as opposed to the "regulative principle" as believed by our Protestant and Baptist forefathers) has brought in a flood of iniquity and has turned the church house into a playhouse for the devil and his crowd. This unscriptural reasoning has brought into the "church" house rap music, rock music, dancing, super bowl Sundays and who knows what all. The professing church has everything except the gospel of the Lord Jesus. All of these things, as it has been with the "Christ-mass", have been advocated in the name of attracting people to church and keeping the interest of the "young people." The fact is the Church will always be a boring place for unregenerate people, and adopting unscriptural, or extra-biblical practices only fills the "church" with unregenerate people, which is the case today.
I borrowed my title this week (it is not plagiarism if you cite your source)from the Late L.R. Shelton, Sr. pastor of First Baptist Church of Algiers, Louisiana. He has a well known message entitled "Christmas- A Demon Holiday" that you would do well to hear. The sermon is in print and can be found on the website of Radio Missions. Lord, willing I will have some more on the subject, but let me urge the true people of God to separate from the world, including the so-called "Christ- mass."
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