SoulTYPE01 said:
But what I meant was, also, how can Santa be an agent of the devil when he doesn't exist?
Santa & Christmas are "agents" just like washing machine soap is. There's an old saying that everything in the Universe has an opposite. Christmas & Santa are on the opposite side of reasoning and you become befouled by them both.
When you associate with customs and traditions of both Satan & Christmas, you "soil" yourself spiritually and fall out of God's grace. Just like Eve & Adam did in the garden of Eden, so too all those going on and believing the lie both to themselves and others, because they 'want to' despite the command from God and Jesus about associating with things belonging to the darkness of Satan.
What's the solution? The spiritual cleansing solution? God and Jesus are. The rules are in the scriptures are. That scripture about 'religious holidays' does not apply here because it, Christmas and Santa, are pagan things mixed in company with the Christian faith. Cover your eyes or put on the horse blinders and go in the path of Satan by letting him embold you to do the works of Cain, or Eve, or Judas Iscariot, or Ananias & his wife who thought they could 'trick' God out of thier loyalties and died for their grevious sin or be with God and Jesus, by doing the works that belong to the faith.
What's the "evil" part of the thread title? That people are trying to trick God out of their souls by doing what the Jews did in bible times when they were ordered not to venture outside of their camps on the Sabbath. Those Jews decided to make their own 'loophole' by creating field camps beyond the quoted distance set out in the Law as to the boundries of one's 'residence'. The field camps became an amendment to the Law. Pretty soon those poeple that started the field camp business made more 'camps' farther and farther away so they could work on the Sabbath. Was God fooled? Not in any way.
God will deal with those who are 'naughty' and reward those who are 'nice'. And unlike the evil things that the wealth of 'goodness' associated with both Christmas & Santa might tip the scale toward that saying from the scriptures in the book of Acts, "It is more beneficial in giving than there is in receiving", God expects everyone to know better and to 'do the right thing'. Which brings me to the 'spiritual death' part of Santa & Christmas. That Santa is the one that knows who's faithful and who isn't. A story so preposterous it boggles the mind when thinking of it. And those that go on and lie to their children is another 'beyond belief' event.
Santa equivalent is Darth Vader. Darth says that statement in one of the Star Wars movies.
... join us or die.
Everyone that has 'joined' themselves to the Christmas 'spirit' and it's 'tradition' are dead spiritually to God and Jesus.
It's up to 'free will' again. Do the will of the Father in the heavens, and be like Abel, Noah, Lot, Job, and many others, including Paul and Jesus or be like Peter was. 'Thinking or doing the will of men instead of the Father'.
Jesus corrected Peter and Peter went on to do great things for the Father who is in the heavens. The scriptures are the Sword of the Spirit which is trying to turn those around that have let Satan do to them like it did to Peter for that one instance. The choice is yours.
Jesus is waiting.
... join us and live.