Ah, yes…the days are getting shorter, the nights are getting colder, and the beautiful autumn leaves are falling from the trees. Autumn is in full swing.

In just a few weeks the shortest day of the year will occur and then the days will gradually be getting longer. It’s that festive time of year when much of the world celebrates this special event.

Of course, I’m referring to the Winter Solstice, a time of reveling and debauchery originating thousands of years ago with that cunningly ambitious fellow, Nimrod the Mighty Hunter.

But wait, millions of people around the world are celebrating Christmas during this time and Christmas doesn’t have anything to do with the Winter Solstice, does it?

God said this in Jeremiah 10:

Thus says the Lord, Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the nations are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it moves not.

If you’re not yet familiar with the word, syncretism, it would behoove you to understand it’s meaning and how God feels about it.

I’m Ronald Dart, now let’s see what Wes White has to say about the origins of these Winter celebrations in part 19 of this study of the Book of Genesis.