Source: The Hope Newsletter

It is very easy to debunk much of the so-called "Christmas celebration" including the myths that are considered by many as biblical truth. For example, the Bible does not tell us that Jesus was born on December 25, nor that we are to set aside a day to commemorate His birth, nor that the wise men appeared in Bethlehem the night of Jesus' birth, etc., etc.

But what the Bible does say about the birth of our Lord cannot be debunked. When we strip away the rubbish of human tradition, we find the pure, powerful account of Scripture concerning the in­carnation of the Son of God. What a story we find in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke! The Angel of the Lord appears and speaks to 1) Joseph, 2) Zacharias, 3) Mary, 4) the wise men; there is special prophetic revelation given through Eliza­beth, Mary, Zacharias, the song of the angels, Simeon and Anna. Throughout the account there is an interweaving of Old Testament Scripture indicat­ing the birth of Jesus to be the fulfillment of God's promise given to His people from the beginning of the world.

From Bread Upon the Waters, by R. J. Rushdoony

In the Bible, we find that not only was every new year a festival, but each new month began with a festival, ro'oh hodesh (Numbers 10:10; 28:11-15). Thus, not only the new year but every new month was a festival and a holy day (Ps. 81:3; Isa. 1:13).

Why this importance to the calendar? One day, after all, is just like another, but, everywhere in the world, we find new years, new moons, new months, regarded as important. The reasons for this are two-fold, and very different. In paganism, days making divisions of time were very important because there days reflected changes in nature. Pagan religions were forms of nature worship, and therefore such days as the winter solstice and summer solstice were very important because they marked changes in time, changes in the day and sun. If we worship nature, then we will regard natural events as important. The Hebrew festivals were not geared to nature but to God. They cele­brated time changes in relationship to God. The passover was their day of salvation. Their thanks­giving celebrated the goodness of God to His people. The new month marked a natural change, but it praised God for His sovereignty, and each new year was numbered in terms of God's creation.

One of the most common difficulties in the church is INDIFFERENTISM. The indifferentists will speak patronizingly of religion-but at the same time will speak of the Reformed Church as bigoted and intolerant because it claims that it has the gospel and some other creeds and churches have left the infallible truth of the Bible.

You meet the indifferentist everywhere. In edu­cational matters he is a secularist; in politics he wants the state to ignore religion entirely; in social questions he advocates many principles subversive to Christian morality,  and tells the church to keep her hands off such questions as divorce, abortion, government education, psychology in state institu­tions, and how a man is to act all day. In the Church he believes that all creeds are equally true and equally helpful-perhaps, down in his heart equally false-and that acceptance or rejection of truth, is as unimportant as the cut of a man'9 clothes or the customs of his particular nationality.

Meditation

"There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."-Isaiah 57:21

One of the most talked about subjects and one of the most critical problems of our day is drugs. For the purposes of this discussion, when we speak of drugs, we are talking about hallucinogenic drugs; those substances which, in quantities normally used, have the primary characteristic of producing hal­lucinations.

There have been volumes of material written on this subject as well as many radio and television programs devoted to the discussion of the drug problem. However, there is one very disturbing characteristic of most of the writing and the radio and television programs which are devoted to the subject of drugs. There is what might be called an uncertain sound, or a relativistic attitude when it comes to determining whether their use is moral­ly right or wrong. Writers and broadcasters are generally taking an a-moral, or at best, a human­istic attitude toward drugs.

K. D. Kauk, Editor

Peace Church, Upham, N. D.

Mrs. Lawrence Mettler

As the months unfold we find God's purposes being fulfilled in our Church. August saw us wel­come Rev. Neale Riffert and family, our pulpit having been vacant four months. Our young peo­ple attended the Heidelberg Youth camp with Rev. Allison of Minot, whom we wish to thank for providing transportation for our young people.

The Church's Commission

If we were to infer from the activity of the present-day Church as to what her duty is, we would arrive at very strange conclusions, the sum of which could possibly be stated thus: she is called upon to make this world better by raising the standard of morals, bringing about a rate of righteousness and justice, and ushering in, the reign of the brotherhood of man. To that end she is to use the pulpit, religious education, and the social activities of her members. Her great hope is, that this can be accomplished very speedily when once the churches can be united and tho­roughly organized.

What follows is Part IV of the Constitution of the Reformed Church in the U. S. While reading over the Constitution recently, your editor became convinced that it would be of great value for all the members of the Reformed Church to read and study over this section on "Doctrine and Worship". Ed.

Christmas 1970

"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good ti­dings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."-Luke 2:10, 11

"There is much fear in America today. Recently I have traveled to every section of the country on a reporting-lecture trip, and I encountered this mood of fear in many conversations and in ques­tions from audiences-fear of student violence, fear of racial tension, fear of hippie nonconformity and, most of all, fear of revolution." So wrote Roscoe Drummond in the Christian Science Monitor re­cently.

We are all aware of the existence in our society of this fear. We live in a day of change with its resulting uncertainty. We always fear the unknown.

Dear partners in the mission,

As we are already well into the year 2009, busy with our daily activities, many of us might well think, with Ecclesiastes: “What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the son? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises… What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the son…” And, even worse: “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind…”

The book of First Peter provides much insight into the theme “Living Godly in an Ungodly Age.” We will be looking at verses 3–4 of chapter 1.

We see at the beginning of the letter in verses 1–2 that believers have a new identity: not only as pilgrims in the world, but as God’s elect. As God’s pilgrims, they are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:2).