FRI HR 2 122223

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Not all veterans are eligible for this hyper amount of benefits mentioned here. All right, we are back and I'm doing a little bit of adjustment here on some of our, maybe this might be the problem. We may have found, okay, is that, okay, there's our problem right now. We have found, uh, with what has taken place out here, uh, with, um, with Heather, with our, with the volume there. Okay.

And so, wait a minute, let me get here. Now, now there you go. We had you hooked up on the wrong mic. Oh, that's why. Now, now you're much louder.

You were actually being picked up. So we have to do the program all over again now. Uh, well, if we do, all right, we're going to go with Papa Panov's Special Christmas.

And this is a story by Leo Tolstoy. And before I even do that, and I think afterwards, what we're going to need to do, we're going to just talk some, uh, what Christmas means. We're going to have a discussion, a round table here, what Christmas means and what it's supposed to mean on this Christmas. We'll even let those three other guys out there in on it, what it's, what do you think, ladies? So with that, I know that they're waiting.

They've been waiting all year to hear. Right, fellas? There you go. Okay. I'm cleaning up my glasses so I can see out of my good eye here.

All right. Papa Panov's Special Christmas by Leo Tolstoy. It was Christmas Eve, and although it was still afternoon, lights had begun to appear in the shops. In the houses of the little Russian village, for the short winter days was nearly over. Excited children scurried indoors, and now only muffled sounds of chatter and laughter escaped from closed shutters. Oh, Papa Panov, the village shoemaker, stepped outside his shop to take one last look around. The sounds of happiness, the bright lights and the faint but delicious smells of Christmas cooking reminded him of past Christmas times when his wife had still been alive and, and his own children little. Now they had gone. He, usually cheerful face, with the little laughter wrinkles behind the round steel spectacles, looked in.

Oh, it looks sad now. But he went back indoors with a firm step, put up the shutters, and set a pot of coffee to heat on the charcoal stove. Then, with a sigh, he settled in his big armchair. Papa Panov did not often read, but tonight, tonight he pulled down the big old family Bible and slowly tracing the lines with one forefinger. He read again the Christmas story. He read how Mary and Joseph, tired by their journey to Bethlehem, found no room for them in the inn, so that Mary's little baby was born in a cowshed. Oh dear, oh dear, explained Papa Panov.

If only they had come here, I would have given them my bed, and I would have covered the baby with a patchwork quilt to keep him warm. He read on about the wise men who had come to see the baby Jesus, bringing him splendid gifts. Papa Panov's face fell.

I have no gift that I could give him, he thought sadly. Then his face brightened. He put down the Bible, got up, and stretched his long arms, the shelf high up on that little room. He took down a small dusty box and opened it. Inside was a perfect pair of tiny leather shoes. Papa Panov smiled with satisfaction. Yes, they were as good as he had remembered, he had remembered the best shoes he had ever made.

I should give them those, he decided, as he gently put them away and sat down again. He was feeling tired now, and the further he read, the sleepier he became, and the print began to dance before his eyes, so that he closed them. Just for a minute, in no time at all, Papa Panov was fast asleep. And as he slept, he dreamed. He dreamed that someone was in his room, and he knew at once, as one dozen dreams, who the person was. It was Jesus! You have been wishing that you could see me, Papa Panov, he said kindly.

Then look for me tomorrow. It will be Christmas Day, and I will visit you, but look carefully, for I shall not tell you who I am. When at last Papa Panov awoke, the bells were ringing out, and a thin light was filtering through the shutters. Bless my soul, said Papa Panov, it's Christmas Day! He stood up and stretched himself, for he was rather stiff.

Then his face filled with happiness, as he remembered his dream. This would be a very special Christmas, after all, for Jesus was coming to visit him. How would he look? Would he be a little baby, as dead of first Christmas?

Would he be a grown man, a carpenter, or a great king, that he is God's son? He must watch carefully the whole day through, the whole day through, so that the recognition that he recognized him, however, he came. Papa Panov put on a special pot of coffee for his Christmas breakfast, took down the shutters, and looked out of the window.

The streets were deserted, no one was stirring yet, no one except the road sweeper. He looked as miserable and dirty as ever, and while he might, whoever wanted to work on Christmas Day, and in the raw cold and the bitter freezing mist of such a morning. Papa Panov opened the shop door, and lit it in a thin stream of cold air. Come in, he shouted across the street cheerfully, come in, and have some hot coffee to keep you, and keep out of the cold. The sweeper looked up, scarcely able to believe his ears. He was only too glad to put down his broom and come into the warm room.

His old clothes steamed gently in the heat of the stove, and he clasped both his red hands around the comforting warm mug as he drank. Papa Panov watched. He watched him with satisfaction, but every now and then his eyes strayed to the window.

He would never do to miss the special visitor. Expecting someone this warm night, the sweeper asked at last. So Papa Panov told him about his dream. Well, I hope he comes, the sweeper said. You have given me a bit of Christmas cheer I never expected to have.

I'd say you deserve to have your dream come true. And he actually smiled. When he had gone, Papa Panov put on cabbage soup for his dinner, then went to the door again, scanning the street. He saw no one, but he was mistaken someone was coming. The girl walked so slowly and quietly, hugging the walls of shops and houses as it was, when before he noticed her, she looked very tired and she was carrying something. As she drew nearer, he could see that it was a baby wrapped in a thin shawl. There was such sadness in her face, and in the pinched little face of the baby, that Papa Panov's heart went out to them.

Won't you come in, he called, stepping outside to meet them. You both need a warm place by the fire and to rest. The young mother let him shepherd her indoors, and in the comfort of the armchair, she gave a big sigh of relief. I'll warm some milk for the baby, Papa Panov said.

I've had children of my own. I can feed her for you. He took the milk from the stove and carefully fed the baby from a spoon, warming her tiny little feet by the stove at the same time. She needed shoes, the cobblers said. But the girl replied, I can't afford shoes.

I've got no husband to bring home money. I'm on my way to the next village to get work. Suddenly, a sudden thought flashed through Papa Panov's mind. He remembered the little shoes he had locked, looked at last night.

But he had been keeping them, those for Jesus. He looked again at the cold little feet and made up his mind. Try these on her, he said, handing the baby, the shoes to the mother, handing the baby shoes to the mother. The beautiful little shoes were so perfect and they fit. The girl smiled happily and the baby gurgled with pleasure. You have been so kind to us, the girl said when she got up with her baby to go.

May all your Christmas wishes come true. But Papa Panov was beginning to wonder if his very special Christmas wish could come true. Perhaps he had missed the visitor. He looked anxiously up and down the street. There were plenty of people about, but they were all faces that he recognized. There were neighbors going to call in the families. They nodded and smiled and wished him a happy Christmas. Oh, beggars, said Papa Panov, hurried indoors to fetch them hot soup and a generous hunk of bread, hurrying out again in case he missed the important stranger. And when Papa Panov next went to the door and strained his eyes, he could no longer make out the passersby.

Most were home and indoors by now. Anyway, he walked solely back to his room, at last put up the shutters and sat down wearily in his armchair. So it had been just a dream after all.

Jesus had not come. Then all at once he knew that he was no longer alone in the room. This was not a dream, for he was wide awake. At first he said, this was not a dream, for he was wide awake. At first he seemed to see before his eyes this long stream of people who had come to him that day.

He saw again the old road sweeper, the young mother, her baby, the beggars he had fed. As they passed, each whispered, didn't you see me, Papa Panov? Who are you, he called out bewildered. Then another voice answered him.

It was the voice from his dream, the voice of Jesus. I was hungry and you fed me, he said. I was naked and you clothed me. I was cold and you warned me. I came to you today and every one of those you helped and welcomed. Then all was quiet and still, only the sound of the big clock ticking. A great peace and happiness seemed to fill the room, overflowing Papa Panov's heart, until he wanted to burst out singing and laughing and dancing with joy.

So he did come after all, was all that he had said. That's the end of that story and I thought it was a good story. Pastor Joe, did you have another that you wanted to do? I had the one, probably one of my favorite, the different Christmas poem. It's a poem about a soldier.

Go ahead. And you and I kind of relate, I think, to this poem. The embers growed softly and in their dim light, I gazed around the room and I cherished the sight. My wife was asleep, her head on my chest, my daughter beside me, angelic in rest. Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white, transforming the yard to a winter delight. The sparkling lights in the tree, I believe, completed the magic that was Christmas Eve. My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep, secure and surrounded by love.

I would sleep in perfect contentment, or so it would seem. So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream. The sound wasn't loud and it wasn't too near, but I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.

Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know. Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow. My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear and I crept to the door just to see who was near. Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night, a lone figure stood, his face weary and tight. A soldier, I puzzled, some 20 years old. Perhaps a marine huddled there in the cold.

Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled. Standing watch over me, my wife and my child. What are you doing?

I asked without fear. Come in this moment, it's freezing out here. Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve. You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve. For barely a moment, I saw his eyes shift away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts, to the window that danced with the warm fire's light. Then he saw the snow, the snow falling danced with the warm fire's light.

Then he sighed and he said, it's really all right. I'm not here by choice. I'm here every night. It's my duty to stand at the front of the line that separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me. I'm proud to stand here like my father's before me. My gramps, he died at Pearl on a day in December. Then he sighed. Oh, that's a Christmas gram we'll always remember. My dad stood his watch in the jungles of NOM and now it's my turn and so here I am. I've not seen my own son in more than a while, but my wife sends me pictures.

Oh, he sure got her smile. Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag the red, white and blue, an American flag. I can live through the cold and being alone away from my family, my house and my home. I can stand up my post through the rain and the sleet. I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat. I can carry the weight of killing another or lay down my life with my sister and brother who stand at the front against any and all to ensure for all time that this flag will not fall.

So go back inside, he said, harbor no fright. Your family is waiting and I'll be all right. But isn't there something I can do at the least? Give you money, I ask, or prepare you a feast. It seems all too little for all that you've done, for being away from your wife and your son.

And then his eyes weld a tear that held no regret. Just tell us you love us and never forget to fight for our rights back at home while we're gone, to stand your own watch no matter how long. For when we come home, either standing or dead, to know you remember we fought and we bled is payment enough and with that we will trust.

And with that we will trust that we matter to you as you matter to us. All right, there you go, and that reminds me what we're up against. Yes, there's a revolution taking place right now in this country. We're fighting against the wickedness, the dark state of communism. The problem of it is there's too few of us in this battle on our side and those that want to, well, the Tories of today want to stay out of the fight and what happens when you try to stay in the middle, you get shot at by both sides, don't you?

That's right, and nobody wants you. Right, Lisa wants to read, she's been wanting to read since we got here, so go ahead, tell us about the gold and wrapping paper. Well, once upon a time there was a man who worked very hard just to keep food on the table for his family. This particular year, a few days before Christmas, he punished his little five-year-old daughter after learning that she had used up the family's only roll of expensive gold wrapping paper. As money was tight, he became even more upset when on Christmas Eve he saw that the child had used all of the expensive gold paper to decorate one shoebox she had put under the Christmas tree. He also was concerned about where she'd gotten money to buy what was in the shoebox. Nevertheless, next morning the girl, little girl, filled with excitement, brought the gift box to her father and said, ìThis is for you, Daddy!î As he opened the box, the father was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, now regretting how he had punished her.

But when he opened the shoebox, he found it was empty, and again his anger flared. ìDon't you know, young lady,î he said harshly, ìwhen you give someone a present, there's supposed to be something inside the package!î The little girl looked up at him with sad tears rolling from her eyes and whispered, ìDaddy, it's not empty!î ìI blew kisses into it until it was all full!î The father was crushed. He fell on his knees and put his arms around his precious little girl.

He begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger. An accident took the life of the child only a short time later. It is told that the father kept this little gold box by his bed for all the years of his life. Whenever he was discouraged or faced difficult problems, he would open the box, take out an imaginary kiss, and remember the love of this beautiful child who had put it there. In a very real sense, each of us has been given an invisible golden box filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children, family, friends, and God. There is no more precious possession anyone could hold.

All right, very good. You know, Christmas is special for children, and when you think about all the children, I've been hearing commercials on TV talking about showing these children that are hungry, that have no food, and we've never ever turned anyone down that has come for food. We've always, always had that, and that's the blessing, being able to bless others with food, and yet it's amazing that we live in the wealthiest country in the world, and yet what's happening, the classes that's going now from billionaires, it seems like, and especially with this economy today, this economy is not good, but we will always feed those that come to us, okay, and that's what we're supposed to do, and right now we're collecting coats for homeless veterans. If folks out there have coats, and we're talking about coats that are nearly new or new, you know, in good condition, we will make sure that they get to a homeless vet, and unfortunately we have way too many homeless vets in this country, and even though we're, even though, you know, we have all of these illegal aliens coming into the country, many of them are just coming here for a better life, and the communists think that, well, they bring these vets in, or these homeless people in, and then that's a vote for them, but a lot of these people are going to realize, look, if we vote for Democrats, we're going to end up with a country that's just like the one we just fled, and so I got a feeling that many of those are, they're going to turn, and I got a feeling that many of them are going to vote for Donald Trump.

What do you fellas think? Somebody say something, I've trained you up. I think a lot of them are starting to understand, even now, that the Democrats are just using them, and once the Democrats get what they want, they're going to kick them to the curb. Well, the word is that they're inviting the military guys that they kicked out for not taking a shot to re-sign up, and I guess they aren't. I guess they're not real happy with the results. They might be trying to make all these illegals into their new army, which then they'll have to send over to Israel to die, so they aren't real happy about it either. Well, what's happening there, too, is because Austin and Milley, they wanted to, you know, they promote, come and join the army, the military, and you will have drag queens at your USO shows, they were promoting transgenderism. I can understand why nobody wants to join the military. They did this purposely to destroy our military, to destroy, and that's what, in my opinion, Milley was getting out while he could.

He knows that if Trump gets back in, he'll probably be tried for treason, as he should have been. But these are the days we're living in now, and again, like we said earlier, there is no Egypt for us to go to. We have to take our country back the way it was given to us, one nation under God.

What do you fellas think? Well, Pastor Ernie, I always believe that spiritual revival and political revival go together, and that we have to look into the spiritual realm, and for God's power to be moved like it did in the S.T. years here, and with that, the move of God will also spill over into the political realm, and God can drive this wickedness. It's really like the spirit of Antichrist manifesting itself, and it has to be done spiritually and then politically. I'm seeing the righteous become more righteous and the wicked becoming more wicked, and this is a time when we've seen this before, where revival breaks out, and I'm hoping that that's what we're going to see, that we're still going to see revival one more time. But right now, we're up against a break.

We'll be back right after this. Do it, John. This is Christ, the king, whose shepherds guard an angel's sin. This, this is Christ, the king, the babe, the son of Mary. Christ, the insert dream, his state, were asked and called a feeding.

Good Christian fear for sinners here, the silent word is bleeding. This, this is Christ, the king, whose shepherds guard an angel's sin. This, this is Christ, the king, the babe, the son of Mary. This, this is Christ, the king, the babe, the son of Mary. The king of kings salvation brings, let loving hearts enthrone him. This, this is Christ, the king, whose shepherds guard an angel's sin. This, this is Christ, the king, the babe, the son of Mary. What child did this so lay to us? Our Mary's lamb is sleeping.

The angels greet within them sweet, while shepherds watch the keeping. All right, there you go. That was S.D. Crispin and S.D.

and Brian Park and myself. And that was an interesting thing with S.D. You know, you spoke of Israel.

S.D. came here from Israel and when S.D. came from a wealthy family, when she got saved, when she accepted Christ, her family disowned her because she was Jewish. And I remember her father actually offering her, S.D. was in real poverty, real poverty, and her father offered her one million dollars to deny Christ and to go back to Orthodox jewelry.

And even though she was in very destitute, she turned that down. And I remember I preached her funeral. And when the father had come to me and asked me, could you please do a favor for the mother's sake, not mention Jesus. And I said, that's exactly what I'm going to do. That's exactly what S.D. would have wanted me to do. So then he says, could you at least not mention him too much?

I said, well, you're right, I won't mention him too much. You got my word on that one. But here's what I'm seeing, and you fellows tell me what you're seeing. I'm seeing nativity scenes and Christmas decorations going up before Thanksgiving. Earlier, it seems like earlier and earlier. It seems like people are hungry, the people really are hungry for that spirit of Christmas. It's about the good times, the good feeling, the feeling that you get when you're giving gifts. It's better to give than receive.

What do you fellows think? I'm seeing something different. I'm seeing the faithful celebrating a more spiritual Christmas than a far less secular. And I'm seeing a large part of the secular world just kind of Christmas has become just another holiday, family gets together, has dinner. There aren't as many Merry Christmas. There's not as much Christmas joy. But in the real Christian community, the born again believers, I'm seeing a far more spiritual and deep Christmas. And it's just kind of like our world is separating good and evil and everything is getting farther and farther apart. The righteous more righteous and the wicked more wicked.

Well, I can see a lot of that too. What about you, John? Are you still there, John? Do we lose John? I'm here, Pastor Ernie.

No, the other John McTernan. Is he still with us or did he drop? He might have dropped. We get several people on and we usually have trouble with that. We've been having some trouble with sound. I had to turn my speaker phone on to hear you.

Okay, very good. Well, since John seems to have gone dropped, Hal, what are you seeing out there today? Are you seeing what Joe and I are seeing? Well, what I see is a commercialization of Christmas and most people, a lot of people, they just, to them, Christmas is a burden. They've got to come up with money they can't afford to come up with to get presents. They're expected to get presents for people and it's more of a burden than a joy. But other people, you know, the people that really love the Lord, they're out there witnessing for them, passing out tracts, trying to, I think the greatest Christmas present you could give somebody is leading somebody to Jesus, getting somebody saved.

Amen. Another thing I saw, Pastor, when he mentioned Christmas, you know, the decorations are becoming more and more secular, more and more arty, more and more, you can get Mickey Mouse and the Christmas tree ornaments now are just, everything's a Christmas tree ornament, you know, and nothing that's celebrating the Lord. And just for me, Christmas is so special, we go to decorate a tree, we do a Christmas tree in this house, and everything on the tree has a meaning, the angels, the staff, the shepherds, gifts, crosses, doves, fish, crowns, you know, star on top. And the tree is telling the story and on top of that then we put candy canes all over the tree because there's a, I've got a whole series of the Bible verses that, you know, like it's hard candy and different things the Bible talks about God being a rock.

And I see more in the born again believers going to the, again, that spiritual using the Christmas season as a way to teach and preach and spread the gospel, and the rest of the world is just more, we've got to put up something pretty and decorate the house so the neighbors are impressed. Yeah, does that mean you didn't like Jill Biden's version of the Nutcracker Suite at the White House? Oh, I didn't waste my time. Bernie, can you hear me now? Yeah, I can hear you now, Big John's back. What happened, John? I don't know, you couldn't hear me, so you've been thrown out of better places than this, right?

You're much better, the sound is much better right now. Yeah, but now Joe's, Pastor Joe's got an echo with him, you can hear an echo, now you're coming in real clear right now, but anyhow, we're talking about what does Christmas really mean to us, and again, we know that Jesus is the only reason for the season. And I've seen, again, I know that there's about every day in this country three new Christian schools open because of what's happening. For all those years we try to expose the indoctrination of the cultural Marxism in a public school system.

People have finally started figuring out, when the parents started finding out because of COVID, you know, something that the enemy meant for evil, some good came out of that, and that was the parents started realizing what their children were being taught in a public school, and they didn't like the pornography part of it, they didn't like the indoctrination and the cultural Marxism, that part of it. So in these Christian schools, like the ones that my grandson goes to, they really go all out to show you that Christ and Christ alone is the reason for this season, what it's all about, and I'm seeing that more and more in other Christian schools, so there's some real good there taking place. You know, Pastor, on Christmas, every Christian out here should be magnifying the Lord Jesus Christ, and I like to see cars that say Jesus bumper stickers, magnetic bumper stickers, and you know, there's so many people getting back of your car just one day, going any place you go, that what a great thing it is if Christians would have Jesus saves on the back that would magnify the Lord, and it would show that, you know, he's the answer for not just the season, but every moment of their lives. He's the one that we're living for, and I wish Christians would get enough courage and love for the Lord, actually, to magnify him instead of just, you know, calling on them when they get in trouble or something.

Well, absolutely, it's time. Again, you know, I always, we put the emphasis, especially in our church, the fact that, again, the best, like you said, the very best gift that you could give anyone at any time of year, not just at Christmas, but anyone at any time is the gift of salvation, and that's what we're called to do. That's mission one, isn't it, the great commission, huh? Well, that brings something to my mind that I think about every Christmas. I remember seeing something years ago, and I think we did it on the radio, there were more children in the world know who Santa Claus is than know who Jesus Christ is, and I thought that's what's wrong with Christmas, why the Christians have to work like hell the same.

We need to start promoting it more. Santa Claus, the Santa Claus everybody's used to, the face, the body, and everything. Oh, just thought I'd bring it up, was created back in the 1930s by a Jewish advertising executive. His name was Haddon Sundblom, and Coca-Cola hired his firm to create a more warm and human Santa to sell Coca-Cola. So this new Santa that swept America, that's now the Santa you see in all the television and marketing, the modern Santa Claus was created by a Jewish ad man to sell Coca-Cola, and more children in the world know who he is than Jesus Christ.

I think we've got some work to do, folks. Well, let me ask you this, was that Santa Claus a white guy? Because Coke says you've got to try to be less white. Well, yeah, this Santa was a white guy, Coca-Cola kind of got a little woke along the way. Don't worry, Target came to the rescue, now they have a black Santa in a wheelchair.

He's disabled. I've been waiting for the new transgendered Santa, that's got to be next year. Anybody notice you got the same letters in Santa as you do in Satan? All you get is a squish around a little bit, and that's what Santa's doing, he's replacing Jesus at Christmas time.

That's exactly what the Antichrist does, that's what the devil wants to do. Santa has a woman's ending on it, it should be Santo Claus or Santos Claus. Santa is a female ending, so what's a man doing with a woman's ending on the front of his name, unless the purpose was to have the same letters there as Satan or whatever. But Satan was a woman on top and man on the bottom anyway, what do they call that?

Baphomet? Yeah. Maybe Santa was trans all along. Yeah, maybe, but he was the devil because he's taking the attention away from Jesus at Christmas time, and that's what the devil does. Christmas is, speaking of taking attention away from Jesus, we have that the other 364 days a year as well, so it behooves us to try to keep this going. When I was a kid, our household was pretty dysfunctional and we agreed that on Christmas nobody could fight or hit anybody or be mean to anybody or say bad things. Toward the end of the day, I'd say, well, why can't we do this the other days of the year?

Why can't we keep doing this for 364 more days? So whatever that is that brings about that spirit of giving and the reminder of the Lord and the reminder of his gift to us, if we can just keep that going, that would be a good thing. Exactly, Christmas should be celebrated every day, right?

In that sense. But you know what gets me a lot of times on Christmas? You have people giving each other bottles of booze and cartons of cigarettes and all that stuff. I like one year, everything I got somebody I got from the Christian bookstore, and they really liked it a lot, whether it's Bibles or whatever, you know, King James Bibles, but today people just, it don't matter what they give them, they'll give them something sinful just because it's Christmas. I was really glad to see how many of the little red Bible answer books we sent out for Christmas present, people were buying ten or twenty at a time. And so that is a perfect Christmas gift also, I would think.

And so, there you go. And sometimes, you know, homemade things and, you know, sharing, one of the things that my wife did, she spent quite a bit of time with one of the granddaughters, we did several things, but one example is beautiful, was teaching the one granddaughter how to make certain items for gifts, and she made some beautiful purses for her mother, for some other people, and they spent a couple days teaching, you know, grandmother, daughter, learning how to do this, make these things, making gifts that were special, and they turned out to be as nice as anything that could be purchased at a store that they were made for a person. And it was far more important than a gift that you just went and picked out at a store.

People don't do things like that anymore, but they should. Yeah, my wife wanted me, we do honeydew list things, things that she's always tried to get me to do, and that would be a Christmas present, that she would write those down on a list, and I would have to do all those things. I got one of those all year long, and so with that Christmas every day thing, my wife must have taken that to heart.

Yeah. I used to make fudge for people to give us presents, and needle-tatting lace crosses for the ladies, and I enjoyed that, though, to give for Christmas. Well, you know, I wanted to say one thing, too, is about our church. You know, I don't know, we seem to really have the Christmas spirit in our church. People just seem to really want to be there, and that is, I know I do, and I don't know if I would be fit to preach or to pastor any other church than the doers of the word, the one I pastor. It must be the singing. Yeah, that could be a good part of it.

The singing, it can't be that. It's our choir, yeah. Pastor, you and I would be thrown out of a lot of the churches, so that we wouldn't last long, a couple of our sermons, and we'd be asked to leave. Well, you're right, and most of them, in fact, you know, I have been called by a number of pastors that were leaving their churches because the communism or Satanism was in them, and they would ask me to come in and preach that last sermon for them, because you had, where Satanism has crept into the church, and boy, I'm going to tell you, that is happening more and more out there today.

Well, let me back up with something I talked about a minute ago, and I can see where it comes. The Bible teaches that God has, what, these qualities that he possesses. He's omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, he's eternal, he's immutable, you know, he's perfect. Well, what did the world do? They took these qualities of God and, you know, bringing, being the giver of reward, but also punishment, judgments, but they supposed a lot of those things on this image of Santa, you know, he knows when, what's that song, he knows when you're sleeping, he knows if you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good.

I don't believe that, Joe. They put these qualities of God onto Santa Claus, and no wonder we have a world that's deceived, because in a way we have this Santa taking the qualities of God alone, and the world doesn't see this, doesn't seem to care, they want to cling to their Santa Claus and their tradition rather than look at the truth. You know, it's an interesting thing, because you remember Pastor Sundemeyer, Pastor Sundemeyer, you know, he had a heart, you know, I mean, he would give you the shirt off his back, he really had a heart, especially for children, he really had a heart for children, and one of his big things was Santa Claus, he was very anti to Santa Claus, and the ironic thing was he looked like Santa Claus, and I was with him one day when a kid asked him if he was Santa Claus, and that was true, and he turned and looked at me like, can you believe this, but that was something, but here we go. If you think about it, it's how the world draws everyone away from the real Christmas, the real Christ child, the real blessings, and you know, we go from a Santa Claus that's a myth and a legend, and you know what, we're out of time, Joe, so I got to tell the folks out there, we got to wish them all.

How to receive your gift this year. If you have not received the greatest gift, then do it, and if you have received that gift, giving is better than getting, and so what you need to do is share that, share that gift, the gospel story, with all of those out there, and so we're going to wish you all, I want to wish all of you folks out there listening, those of you that for so many years, and I mean decades that have supported this radio ministry, I want to thank you, and I hope that this is the best Christmas that you've ever had, your best Christmas ever, so you folks, everybody go ahead and make your wish out there to the folks. I wish everybody gets their prayers met, and they get saved, and their family gets saved, and I wish all, I pray that all of you yield yourselves as Christians to the Lord, let Him magnify Himself in you, and in your lives, because He created you for that purpose. My wish is you would allow the Holy Spirit to actually literally guide and direct you like He wants to do, and He will bring Christmas, a new meaning to Christmas, and a new happiness and joy to your life, because all the blessings at Christmas should be almost a daily event in your heart.

John? Yeah, and I'm asking that this Christmas, from this Christmas on, it's going to be a great blessing that families are going to grow closer together, children are going to get grounded in the Word of God, husband and wives will be working together, a strong family unit, and that's what I'm looking for, is families coming back, children under the families, as God has ordained it. Amen.

Yep. Yep, amen. There's some people out there tonight that are very, very lonely. I know that I've had people tell me how they've always spent Christmas alone, because really, but you're never going to be alone if you have the Lord, so if you're out there tonight, you're all by yourself and you're feeling lonely, just call upon the name of the Lord and just pray to God.

He's waiting to hear from you, He really is, and again, I'm saying that would be the best, your best blessed Christmas is to hear from the Lord. Go ahead, Lisa. Go ahead. Okay, well I would wish that anyone out there who isn't saved, that this is going to be the night that we see Jesus as their Savior and those who have maybe gone away from Him will return and grow closer and be a blessing and bless everyone who has helped us through the years. All right, very good. That's good.

Go ahead, we'll make Heather say something. Oh, I just want to say, in order to give gifts, you have to learn to receive gifts. We have to receive the gift that Christ has given us and that God has given us in order to be able to turn around and give back to others, so we do pray that if anyone out there hasn't received the gift that Christ gave, that they would contact us and find a Bible believing church or just call our church, Doors of the Word. Again, I want to say thank you to all of you folks, all of you out there, so many of you have supported this ministry and believe me, we appreciate it.

We couldn't be here without you helping us. So we're at that time and I want to say a very, very Merry Christmas. May this be your best Christmas ever. We're up against it, so this time we always say good night. We say God bless. We say Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. And always, always, always keep fighting the fight. Ho, ho, ho. is unfiltered and unapologetic. Watch anytime on any screen at snc.tv and local now channel 525.