In the December issue of Straightway we presented an article on "Christmas Separations." We follow up that thought with "Christmas Extinctions." The tragedies of all our Christmases back in history were a result of the frailties of the calendar, erroneous inclusions by the pagans and Romanism, as well as the commercial abuse in the greed of man.

There remains something to be said at this particular Christmas about several distinctions in the Bible in contrast to modern Christianity. The Christmas story in the Word of God remains paramount to the New Testament as the first Christmas, one of a kind, in all other acknowledgments of the later Christmases.

Only One First Christmas

No other Christmas has ever been commemorated in the truth and beauty of the first Christmas. That Christmas was the singular historic event of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, entering into a time, space, historic incarnation. We believe in His Virgin Birth because it is indeed a historical fact.

At the other end of the years since the birth of the Lord Jesus, Christmases have experienced a diminution of truth and we stand in need today of a special return to that first truth. Personally, I am constrained to speak of Christmas "especially this year." The first and only completely genuine Christmas brought the "good news" that the Savior had been born in Bethlehem. All of the Old Testament prophecies, beginning with Genesis, chapter three, verse fifteen, foretelling the coming of Messiah, were now fulfilled. The world had really waited for over 4,000 years. But after that singular event of His birth, His death, His resurrection and ascension, the world is called upon "to wait," once again, "for his son" (God's) "from heaven" (I Thessalonians 1:10). After 4,000 years of waiting we have waited again for 2,000 years for His Second Advent. The central, first Christmas, only, has that great a distinction and wonder.

Christmas, This Year

This year, in the same month of Christmas, we have had the impeachment resolution of President William Clinton as well as the Iraqi war again. Christmas, this year, brings us to an unprecedented danger and loss of moral and spiritual values with God, home, and country in the United States. We do not want this article to deteriorate into a negative Christmas thought, but this Christmas the entire world is in a greater danger than ever before. The last days are upon us.

Therefore, as Christians, we must celebrate this Christmas with greater hope in the realization that unto us, too, "a child is born," a Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. All Christian pulpits must pursue this truth, especially this Christmas. The Biblical preachers of this land must set forth the purity of preaching in the power of the Holy Spirit, "especially this Christmas."

Two Historical Events in America

There are two distinctive events in the history of the United States of America which we must review again as two of the most pertinent and precious involvements across all our historical years. They concern the coming of the Puritans/Pilgrims as well as the Civil War.

The first took place in the early seventeenth century in New England. The second took place in the nineteenth century in the awesome encounter between the North and the South in the possibility of destroying the United States and bringing into the same geography two nations entirely separate—antithetical forces indeed.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony of the earlier Puritan/Pilgrim ethic would be swallowed up into a United States—with Union forces of a Northern political power and a Southern Confederacy struggle. The Massachusetts Bay settlements down through the geography of the southern Chesapeake Bay settlements would undergo their most severe division as families would be divided over what some still believe was only black slavery two hundred years later. Although the various places involved cannot be exactly pinpointed, yet 129 actual geographies have been identified and about 58 of them are still preserved landmarks. Modern man is threatening the continued existence of these memorials.

The Puritans and the Pilgrims

The Covenanters and the Puritans were not faultless, but they were mainly right. They sought a Biblical Commonwealth (1626-1686) in which the Biblical and Christian ethic would be inaugurated as the basis of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and only Christians were desired to lead the Colony. Solomon Stoddard, the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards, would finally give the "Half-Way Covenant" which eventually revealed that there was no genuine way in which a man could be guaranteed in his judgment of who was indeed a Christian. The Lord's Supper took the precedent as the hopeful witness of one's indeed being a believer.

John Locke, who studied under the able scholar, John Owen, at Cambridge, brought to fruition the belief that a government must address the problem of all society and its privilege of freedom, irrespective of the individual's religious belief. Of course, Roger Williams, of famed Rhode Island, shared this conviction with less tact. To this day, we think of John Owen as the founding father, in America, of the Puritan movement.

Finally, a government document would be forged from the influences of the Magna Charta of 1215, the Mayflower Compact and Bay Colony, as well as the writings of John Locke, and their resulting philosophy would be brought into the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, as well as the Bill of Rights. The end was a document which would provide freedom and liberty to all people in a pluralistic society of a variety of religions or the belief in no religion at all. We rejoice that the Puritan-Pilgrim ethic played a great part in these matters.

The Civil War

The soul of Lee would meet the sword and alcoholism of Grant in the bloodiest war ever to come to the soil of America. This war has never been won yet, philosophically. We can only say that it was a war, one of a kind, in our country.

For the sake of our study in this article, I believe it would be helpful if we were to observe some seven interpretations which we have concluded from our own readings across the years on the subject of the Civil War. However, there are more than these seven views in many other books.

First, there are those who have interpreted that the cause and purpose of the Civil War was that the black people, many who had become slaves in America, were to be destroyed like God instructed Israel to destroy the Canaanites.

Second, God intended for the Northern and Southern churches which existed at the time of the Civil War to choose to follow their respective leaders, Lee or Grant, in their actual identifications, respectively, and that was the singular reason for the splits into the Northern and Southern Baptists, the Northern and Southern Methodists, and the Northern and Southern Presbyterians.

Third, the churches of both the North and the South simply did not know the will of God in the conflict of the Civil War, and took their own respective positions and decisions to split so that each could follow their own Biblical and political convictions of the conflicts of the North or the South.

Fourth, there is the interpretation of the Civil War that it simply was a battle of purpose between two men and their supporting leaders which became a choice between the soul of Lee or the sword and alcoholism of Grant.

Fifth, others have interpreted the meaning of the Civil War as simply a pragmatic and financial necessity between industry and agriculture, involving slavery and the alternative work force.

Sixth, still others have sought the root which eventually brought the Civil War as simply the extension of the earlier conflicts between the Federalists and States' Rights in their respective political parties. This interpretation is illustrated in the famous duel between the Federalist Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.

Seventh, the Civil War was also interpreted as having a divine intent by God, and he was dealing with the entire nation about its present condition and future purpose. This became, to some degree, the interpretation of Abraham Lincoln.

These Two Events in American History

These two living experiments of the Puritan/Pilgrim ethic and the Civil War were truly outstanding events which drew the deepest faith and conviction from its people. The great writings of the Puritan fathers as well as the great details and writings since the Civil War will always continue in the drama, debates, arguments, interest, and curiosity for this nation. In the Civil War, itself, preachers and chaplains were always in the center of the dynamic influence on the soldiers themselves. History records that 180,000 soldiers in the Northern Union were saved by grace as well 210,000 soldiers in the Southern Confederacy. This was happening as the three major protestant denominations were split, finally, in both doctrinal and political positions in the nation.

The estimated record of the dead and wounded in the Civil War is as follows: Federal Union dead, 364,511; the Southern Confederacy dead, 260,000; the Union wounded, 281,881; the Confederacy wounded, 194,000. This marks a total of 624,511 dead, and a total of 475,881 wounded. Over 1,000,000 were in the totals of these figures.

The Christian Paradox

It must be the principle and conviction of the fundamental, conservative Bible believer that this Christmas, especially this Christmas, we see the balance need of both the Christian brotherhood within our churches as well as a pluralism in our society. The Bible teaches us concerning our Christian brotherhood and actually allows for the weaker brother and sister in our fellowship as well as the fact that we must live in a pluralistic society. Scriptural separation does not include separation from any true brother, nor does it forbid us from living in a pluralistic society. This is a difficult paradox to keep, but in our dangerous world Christians must seek to go as far as Biblical principle allows with all men. I am a separatist fundamentalist, but I see no conflict with that staunch position in the need of fearing God and the King.

I believe President William Clinton is an immoral, dishonest failure as our president; I believe he should indeed resign his office; he has become a disgrace to the nation. In spite of all of that, God has not eliminated him from the earth. It is necessary to personal faith that we bring God into this accountability without being brazen about it at all. And we account for God's reason in this matter as found in the manifestation of His great mercy to mankind in our time. Never, in history, have we found such a great display of God's mercy. This is explanatory to His longsuffering in all of these things in the earth.

These observations influence me to believe that the Puritan ethic was valid in our history; the Civil War experience was valid in our American history. This demands me to conclude that I must maintain a heart of piety and patriotism, together, through all of these things. I must live in Godliness and in loyalty to my nation. Loyalty is more than a negative principle. When we have Biblical convictions against the affairs in our country, we must still resist these affairs by law when conscience with God demands it. If things deteriorate further and we cannot resist by law, then we must take our stand and be a martyr. But I must live and die by this paradox: if I am martyred, I am comforted that I have satisfied the demands of the law of God and the law of my country. I have kept piety and patriotism, Godliness and loyalty.

Somewhere I have read about the fact that in our atmosphere there is both nitrogen and oxygen. If nitrogen is taken away, the oxygen does not make up for it—we are left to suffer without nitrogen at all. Such, I think, is the problem of the lack of any true paradox. If either principle is omitted, there is no way to make it up. This is not a middle-of-the-road concept; this is not compromise; this is a loss of truth—nitrogen.

Two Possible Christmas Extinctions

With all of these considerations, also, we must not lose sight of two possible Christmas and/or Christian extinctions: one, the loss of the fact that there are Christians in this world with very little Gospel light, who are genuine Christians, who only seem extinct; and two, there is also an actual extinction of historic Christianity in the present apostate Christianity of the Charismatics, the Ecumenists, the Neo-evangelicals, and the Roman Catholic unions.

Especially this Christmas, in this extremely dangerous world of ours, we must not even imagine in our pride that every individual Christian must be exactly as we are in every sense of the word. I refuse to believe I am the only one right in the world. In the Book of Acts, the separatist fundamentalist only knew a simple core of Gospel light at that point in history—"saved by grace through faith," and continuing daily in the apostolic doctrine, such as it was, the breaking of bread, going from house to house, in hunger for greater Gospel light and seeking to know God better in prayer. They daily lived at Solomon's Porch in the environs of the Temple and the ongoing spiritual exercises back in their homes. Evidently, many visitors to Jerusalem at that particular feast of the year stayed on through the generous hospitality of the Christian homes there. They went to church in the morning at Solomon's Porch, and they returned back home to church in the houses of the Christian testimonies themselves. Everybody was learning simultaneously; everyone was making the same mistakes as a novice in the Lord before each other. What a wonderful, primitive way to deal with pride—all only learners of grace.

The apostasy of our own time has so redefined Biblical Christianity for the people with a cheap grace and easy believism that the soul-winner must first of all seek to know where the candidate for saving grace is situated in his own heart with regards to the melee of the contemporary miasma of it all. We are seeking sinners, in our generation, having been already damaged by a false Christianity. It has become imperative that we give each hopeful candidate of grace the earliest possible truths of the Gospel as the Holy Spirit uses the simplicity of credibility and plausibility in man's conviction of his sins and introduction to the regenerating Savior.

We know that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Revealed Word of God will never become extinct in history. However, we must live, labor, and love for all those who have little light and for those also who are a part of the apostasy in the ecumenical factory of the time. In our definitive evangelism of the Gospel, we must welcome those with little light as well as those who have abused light and are a part of those who listen to the apostasy. We must both identify the apostasy and the apostate movements in a time of God's greatest manifestation of mercy in the history of the world!

Leftovers from Christmas

In the feeding of the 5,000 by the Lord Jesus Christ, from five loaves and two fishes, we note with encouragement that 12 baskets were taken up in excess of the need of that day. The feeding of the 5,000 had a lasting effect, and the number must be increased in our thinking to include what happened to the twelve extra baskets. I don't think it was one basket for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Possibly, a better suggestion would be that it became food given to the poor of another place. Whatever may be the details of this report, which is not revealed, the revealed fact remains that this miracle of the Lord had more than the effect of one passing day with one assembly of people.

May God grant unto all of us, as His dear people, a portion of the effect of this very Christmas, especially this Christmas, to last in our hearts for the days ahead and the dangers abroad in our land.