Today is Christmas, and a time of great sadness for me. My forsaking of Christmas in 2005 was the last straw in what became the end of my 24 year marriage to a woman who I thought loved me and our Creator. It resulted in the loss of my family and the end of my life as I then knew it; but it was also the beginning of a wonderful adventure in getting to really know Yehovah as my only sovereign.

The lack of people on my blog and on Facebook today is unusual and I am sure it is because people are spending time with their families. Please understand, I am not saying spending time with family is bad. But I think few understand the subtleties of what is going on with respect to Yehovah and Christmas. They are simply not compatible, for we can not know Yehovah and keep Christmas!

I love the book of Yasher which I have been teaching alongside Genesis over the last seven months in my weekly Sabbath Class. In it I have seen the phrase “know Yehovah” many times.

Know Yehovah And Keep His Instructions

Jasher 13:21 “And many of the people of Haran, about seventy-two men, followed Abram and Abram taught them the instruction of Yehovah and his ways, and he taught them to know Yehovah.”

Jasher 22:40 “And Isaac the son of Abraham was growing up in those days, and Abraham his father taught him the way of Yehovah to know Yehovah, and Yehovah was with him.”

Jasher 23:5 “My son Isaac is grown up and he has not for some time studied the service of his God (Elohim, lawmaker and judge) , now tomorrow I will go and bring him to Shem, and Eber his son, and there he will learn the ways of Yehovah, for they will teach him to know Yehovah as well as to know that when he prays continually before Yehovah, he will answer him, therefore there he will know the way of serving Yehovah his Elohim.”

Jasher 26:34 “And there arose not a man who feared Elohim like unto Abraham, for he had feared his Elohim from his youth, and had served Yehovah, and had gone in all his ways during his life, from his childhood to the day of his death.
35 And Yehovah was with him and delivered him from the counsel of Nimrod and his people, and when he made war with the four kings of Elam, he conquered them.
36 And he brought all the children of the earth to the service of Elohim, and he taught them the ways of Yehovah, and caused them to know Yehovah.”

Many people like to believe that they know Yehovah because they have begun learn and perhaps even do a few of His wonderful, eternal and unchanging ways. But turning to a few of His ways has nothing to do with knowing Yehovah. Do we really know Him? Do we know what he values? Do we know what makes him hurt or laugh or cry? Do we know what He loves and hates? Do we know how He feels when we say we serve Him, but in fact serve other law makers and judges of our birth? Do we know whose prayers He hears?

Then I looked in the Scriptures (Moses and the Prophets) for that same phrase:

“And Pharaoh said, ‘Who is Yehovah, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know Yehovah, nor will I let Israel go.’ ” (Exo 5:2)

“When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know Yehovah nor the work which He had done for Israel.” (Jdg 2:10)

“Now the sons of Eli (a priest of Yehovah) were corrupt; they did not know Yehovah.” (1Sa 2:12)

“Then Yehovah called yet again, “Samuel!” So Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” He answered, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” (Now Samuel did not yet know Yehovah, nor was the word of Yehovah yet revealed to him.)” (1Sa 3:6-7)

But speaking of His people in the last days Yehovah says:

“I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in loving-kindness and mercy; I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall know Yehovah.” (Hos 2:19-20)

In my opinion, the goal of every man should always be to know Yehovah! If we do not know Him we have fallen short of what the creator desires. The ways of the wicked lead to destruction. We say we love “the LORD” but most do not even know His name, much less “know him”an d His set -apart days. He says,

Thus says Yehovah: “Do not learn the way of the Gentiles; Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, For the Gentiles are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are futile; For one cuts a tree from the forest, The work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. They decorate it with silver and gold; They fasten it with nails and hammers So that it will not topple. They are upright, like a palm tree, And they cannot speak; They must be carried, because they cannot go by themselves. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor can they do any good.” (Jer 10:2-5)

Christmas is one of those festivals which Yehovah hates, it is steeped in paganism.

Lawlessness is Torah-lessness! No one who practices lawlessness knows, or can know Yehovah. His word and ways (his statutes, His judgments, His ordinances) and the stories about the relationships He had with His set-apart men (like Noah, Abraham and David) teach us how to know him. Through His word we learn to discern between the holy and the common, between clean and unclean and to know Yehovah.

When I woke this morning I said to myself, “I HATE CHRISTMAS!” and then considered what my Father thinks about it. The first verse that came to my mind was this one.

“I hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies.” (Amo 5:21)

The word used for hate is שׂנא (shin, nun, aleph – pronounced ‘saw-nay’), it is the antonym of the word for love. Jeff Benner’s Ancient Hebrew lexicon of the Bible says this about שׂנא. (Note: I have to use Hebrew fonts instead of the picture language below, since the latter does not render correctly in WordPress.) The root of שׂנא is סן (sin, nun – pronounced ‘sin’).

(סן) ac: Pierce co: Thorn ab: Hate: The pictograph ס is a picture of a thorn, the ן is a picture of seed. Combined these mean “thorn seed“. The thorn, the seed of a plant with small sharp points) cause one to turn directions to avoid them. (eng: sin)

שׂנא ac: ? co: ? ab: Hate: Like a thorn, hate causes one to turn away from another. {str: 8130, 8131}

Christmas is not one of Yehovah’s feast days, it is a day that Yehovah hates; it turns people away from Him, His moedim (His appointed times) and leads them to false elohim (false gods – lawmakers and judges).

My only desire in this life is to know Yehovah as my only sovereign, to keep only His ways and to help others do the same.