When the tsunami brought about the death of tens of thousands last year, we sought to use the incident to warn of the uncertainty of life and the need of attending to the salvation of our souls through faith in Christ's precious blood. When the hurricane "Katrina" devastated the city of New Orleans, in like manner we sought to use the tragedy to the furtherance of the gospel. Across the world today, a flood-tide of hurricane force is sweeping all before it into a dizzy world of make-believe, of fleshliness and of deceit. I speak of the myth of "Christmas." Under the guise of celebrating the birth of Christ, there is a celebrating of the sins of the flesh in a re-emergence of the mid-winter feast of Bacchus, the pagan god of wine. "Christmas" is like Jeroboam's feast, 1 Kings 12:33 -- self-appointed! The story of the birth of Christ is an old, old story. The words we are reading are some 2700 years old and are by no means the oldest reference to His birth in the Bible. The words "born" and "given" carry within them the idea of "presentation". So in the gospel there is a shewing of Christ, a holding of Him forth.