Who is Santa?

Wednesday, December 22, 2010, 2:19 p.m. – the past day or so the Lord has given me an image in my mind of Santa Claus in relation to mankind that I believe he would want me to share with others, especially with those who profess Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord.

So, I believe the Lord would have me to examine the question of “Who is Santa?”

1. He is an aberration – “A departure from what is normal or desirable; a defect in a lens or mirror, causing a distorted image or one with colored edges” – Encarta.

2. He is a lie – “to say something that is not true in a conscious effort to deceive somebody” – Encarta.

3. He is a bad imitator of God’s attributes of all knowing, all powerful and all present as he knows when you are sleeping or awake and he knows if you have been bad or good and he is able to deliver what the children of the world ask for all in a single night all over the entire world, but only to children who have been good. Imitate - “to adopt somebody else's behavior, voice or manner, sometimes in order to make fun of him or her” – Encarta.

4. He is a comedian – “an entertainer who amuses an audience with comedy; an actor who plays comic roles; somebody who is or tries to be amusing” – Encarta.

5. He is imagined – “to form an image or idea of somebody or something in the mind; to see or hear something that is not there, or think something that is not true,” – Encarta – i.e. he doesn’t exist. He is merely an image created for the purpose to deceive and to imitate God in a bad way and to steal the hearts of God’s children.

6. He is a created being – “to bring something into existence; to use imagination to invent things or produce works of art; to result in something or make something happen” – Encarta.

My husband and I were having our devotions together last night. We had read Psalm 51 the night before, so he read to me Psalm 52: (quoting vv. 1-5):

Why do you boast of evil, you mighty man?
Why do you boast all day long,
you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?
2 Your tongue plots destruction;
it is like a sharpened razor,
you who practice deceit.
3 You love evil rather than good,
falsehood rather than speaking the truth.
Selah

4 You love every harmful word,
O you deceitful tongue!

5 Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin:
He will snatch you up and tear you from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of the living.
Selah

I believe the Lord would have me to look at some of these definitions in light of scripture.

An aberration is a departure or a deviation from a course or standard. The Bible gives us that course or standard by which we are to conduct our lives and by which we are to lead others to the knowledge of the truth. As well, the Bible warns us against such deviances from the course or standard that God set before us in His Word.

Acts 20:29-31:

“I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.”

II Co. 4:1-3:

“Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.”

When we teach our children about Santa Claus, we are lying to them. A lie is a non-truth with a conscious effort to deceive somebody. We are deceiving them, and it is for the purpose of drawing disciples unto Santa Claus whether we will admit it or not. We are also teaching our children that this made up figure has the same attributes as Almighty God so that makes Santa a false god which then means that we are leading our children to believe in a false god.

John 8:43-45: (Jesus speaking)

“Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!”

Ever wonder why the name Santa looks a whole lot like Satan? Just move the “n” to the end. And, Satan is a liar and the father of lies, so since Santa is a lie, he is of Satan.

Proverbs 6:16-19:

There are six things the LORD hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
17 haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
19 a false witness who pours out lies
and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

I find it interesting that two out of the seven things the Lord hates have to do with telling lies. If he hates lies it means he doesn’t want us to lie, especially to our children who believe what we tell them.

Lastly, Santa is an actor, i.e. someone playing a role. He is an entertainer as jolly old saint nick with his “Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas!” He is made up in people’s minds and in the minds of his creators, which are Satan, the media, greed, marketing, sales, the church, the government, businesses who can make a profit off of him, and parents who tell their children about him. He is a fabrication of the worst kind because he dares to imitate Almighty God, to take on his attributes (bad imitation), etc. Who wanted to be God? Satan! And, that is why he (Lucifer) was thrown out of heaven. He was exalting himself to be God.

And, this continues with this imagery of Santa as a poor imitation of God whose purpose is to distract the minds of young children from the true and only God. Think about it. Young children are not going to get all excited about a baby in a manger who they don’t see as doing anything particularly tangible for them when they have Santa Claus and his sleigh full of presents and reindeer flying through the air and sneaking into their houses at night to deliver them what their hearts desire materially. How is that going to make them put Jesus first or think about who Jesus really is. Jesus gets second billing, I guarantee you! And, he is not even a close second to Santa Claus in the minds of young children. Someone who has to sneak into a house is someone regarded as cunning and deceitful. And, it is no mistake that we celebrate Jesus’ birth on the same day we celebrate Santa. God has a lot to say on the subject of mixing the worship of false gods with the worship of the true God.

Although the main focus of this so far has been the lies, deception, distortions of truth, imitations, acting, entertaining, etc. associated with the image and the promotion of the image and the lie of Santa Claus, the Lord gave me an illustration of how mankind can be just like Santa Claus. When we, as mankind, depart from God’s standards, when we lie and deceive in a conscious effort to mislead others, when we distort the truth in order to gain approval for ourselves or approval for an image we want to present of ourselves, when we are bad imitators of what a follower of Christ is supposed to be in order to make people think we are living rightly when we are not, which is called hypocrisy, when we make jokes and entertain people so that they will like us and so that they won’t see what we are really like underneath, and when we promote ourselves to be something we are not for some type of selfish gain at the expense of others, we are being just like Santa Claus, which is a BIG FAT LIE! And, God hates lies! And, Satan is the father of all lies.

I pray that we will each examine our hearts before Almighty God and allow him to show us the lies and deceptions of our own hearts that are a cover-up for who we really are inside. I pray that we, as a people of God, will be shown where we are just going through the motions and where the image we are presenting on the outside (like the image of Santa) of ourselves is a lie, i.e. that the image we present of ourselves, just like Santa, doesn’t exist in reality. I pray that we will discover where we are actors and comedians and entertainers for the purpose of deception and to cover-up our true nature underneath. And, I pray that we will put off those lies, deceptions, cover-ups, etc. and that we will put on the truth and will begin telling the truth to ourselves, to God and to others. Many people believe the lies they tell themselves and they tell others, which falls into the category of denial. If we are to be truth tellers instead of liars, then we need to stop believing the lies ourselves, and we need our Lord Jesus to reveal to us His truth.

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer / Thomas O. Chisholm / W. J. Kirkpatrick

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.