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- [00:05]
A
Hello everybody and welcome to a very special Skywatch television program. Today, you know, Jesus is the reason for the season. And we here at Skywatch TV wanted to take just a moment to share some reflections and personal stories as we navigate this very special time of year. We are so thankful to our Skywatch family for your continued support, especially over the last couple of years in particular, and for welcoming us into your homes every single week, even if through a television screen. Today we simply want to spend some time with you and revisit some of the moments, lessons and experiences that have stayed with us over the years. And I'm going to start with you, Donna, because one of the questions that you hear if you're in the Christian world anywhere, especially in broadcasting, especially in the entertainment based church or many of the Skywatch family have this continued question about whether or not it is scripturally permissible to celebrate Christmas. Now that's something that we've talked about many times, but for those brand new to the program or for those just curious what our position on that is, is Christmas the celebration of scripturally permissible?
- [01:14]
B
I'll give the ending first and then I'm going to qualify it. Whatever proceedeth not from faith is sin. If you are convicted about something and you go against that conviction between you and God, that is sin. On the other hand, we have this very legalistic voice that is every day it's almost a show of I know more than you do about the historical relevance of Yule this or Saturnalia that, or, you know, Sol Invictus and the birthday of the unconquerable Sun God of Rome. All of these different things that are happening around Christmas time. There's a lot of people in the church that want to continue to point at this is pagan, that is pagan. You can do this, but not this. But this is a situation, but that's not a sin. So we play this game with ourselves every year, don't we? First we have, well, if I celebrate, I might do something wrong, even accidentally I might do something wrong, I might do something pagan. But if I don't celebrate, I'm not celebrating Jesus Christ and the Incarnation. And of course, where would you draw the line? Every time that you say the day of a week, every time that you say the day of a month, it's named after a God or a goddess in some kind of a pagan pantheon. And a lot of the same people that are judging others based on how they celebrate Christ are drawing up New Year's resolutions and they don't even realize that that in itself is a ritual to the goddess Janus, who's got two faces, one facing the past, one facing the future, and everything about her is a worship of out with the old, in with the new. A New Year's resolution is in itself a pagan ritual. Janus is the goddess that January is named after. So a lot of these people that want to berate the Christian for having a Christmas tree don't realize that there might be a lot of other areas following consistent conviction.
- [03:05]
C
Yeah, wedding rings comes right out of Egypt.
- [03:10]
B
Think about what Christmas really is for just a moment. The real reason of the season. It's not just Jesus birthday, although it's that, too. And, no, Jesus birthday is not literally on December 25th, but that is the day that we choose to celebrate it on. It's also the incarnation of God himself into the flesh. Let that breathe for a second. God himself condescended his own nature to come down to us. And he could have rejected humanity and said, y' all are sinners, and I'm not gonna waste my time. But instead, he redeemed us. This celebration should be celebrated. Christmas should be celebrated. Now, because of the conviction in the room, we might look at this and go, okay, how do we look at this holiday? And instead of reject it, how do we redeem it? Here's how. We often forget that we're not the first generation that had to answer this question. The early church already did this. Let me give you two very quick examples. The holly bush. All right? In the early church, the holly bush, I can't say on family television what it represented, but I will tell you that all of the parts of the holly bush was a very pagan symbol of fertility. And it came out every year for very pagan reasons, right in December. And the early church looked at that and said, we're not going to be able to stop the culture. And really, when you go back further, before the pagans decided to own it as a fertility symbol, it was a plant that came from God's creation anyway. So let's bring it back. Let's redeem it to something else. Now, instead of seeing all of these perverted symbolisms, let's look at the holly bush like this. The evergreen of the leaf represents eternal life because green is the color of life, and winter can't kill that color in that plant. Winter kills everything. But the evergreen of the holly bush lives on. The red is the cleansing of Jesus blood, and the prickling leaves represent the crown of thorns. This whole bush was redeemed in an instant because the early church said, not in my town. I'm not going to let the pagans own this. I'm going to celebrate this creation of God because he owned it first. The candle is another example. They light it every December for all kinds of different Roman pantheonic reasons. If you light a candle in December, are you worshiping something pagan? Well, the bottom line is when the early church knew they couldn't stop that too, they looked at it and said, let's redeem that also. Now, when you light a candle in December or on December 25, we are celebrating that the light came into the world, not the sun God, not the sun this or that, or the Pantheon. The light of Christ came into the world through the Incarnation. So don't reject the holiday. Redeem it. And if you have a conviction that is saying, I still feel like there are certain parts of this I shouldn't be celebrating, whatever, proceed not from faith is sin. Follow that conviction. But consider a couple of alternative ideas here, and I brought just a few. My husband came up with the idea of putting an empty chair wherever you open the presents, wherever you gather, because it symbolizes that Jesus is present with you. Your kids are not going to be able to forget the visual of an empty chair. Consider giving donations to charity in somebody's name. Instead of a gift that's going to end up in the goodwill pile the following year, consider recording your blessings. If you don't like presents at all, record your blessings throughout the year. Put them in little pieces of paper, put them in a jar, and instead of a big giant pile of presents, pull this jar out. Gather around, whether that be a fireplace or a tree, or however you celebrate and pull those out and look at what God has done for you over the year of blessing. Take communion. The bottom line is there are alternative ways to celebrate this time of year if you feel convicted. But I will give you just a fun little happy warning for you if you are the that walks into the Christmas season weaponizing your own personal conviction against a brother that doesn't do anything but make Jesus sad. You want to know the number one tradition that will trump every other tradition? It always tops the charts. This is the Christmas tradition that you can keep that will always keep Jesus at the top of the season. Ready? Be like him. That's the number one tradition at Christmas time.
- [07:37]
D
Amen. Derek and I, when we lived in Indiana, we had some good friends. We rented the house from them for a while, and their tradition at Christmas was a live tree representing the tree that Jesus would eventually offer his life on and when the tree, when Christmas was over, they took the branches off and they formed it into a cross and they put it in the front of their house. And when people would walk by and they would ask what it was, Jesus was born to die.
- [08:13]
C
He made the tree that he knew would be the old rugged cross.
- [08:17]
B
Yes.
- [08:18]
C
And I know there'll be some people who say, hey, what about. I address the what abouts in my book the Second Coming of Saturn. First of all, there's a sect of Christians that began celebrating Christmas on December 25, the early fourth century, before Constantine became the emperor. So you can't blame Constantine or the Council of Nicaea for December 25th. Sol Invictus. Yes. Emperor Aurelian made Sol Invictus, the celebration of a feast of Sol Invictus, the law throughout the Roman Empire in 274 A.D. but that was on November 18th. Didn't become December 25th until the middle of the about 374 A.D. in other words, there's more evidence that the feast of Sol Invictus was to try to co opt the celebration of Christmas than the other way around. What about Nimrod? There is no evidence from the ancient world. And I can say this having read about Mesopotamian religion For the last 10 years, no evidence Nimrod was ever worshipped by anybody. Ever. Hear that again? Nimrod was never worshiped by anybody ever. So O Nimrod tree is not a thing. Okay, finally, how did we settle on December 25? Because in the second century, Latin Christians in North Africa wanted to find the date of Jesus birth. And there was a tradition among Jews that famous prophets died on the same day they were conceived. And they came up with a date as they tried to figure they got the date wrong, but they came up with March 25th of the year AD 29. Now, wrong date, but that's how they came up with it. Add nine months to March 25, you get December 25. That's all there is to it. Had nothing to do with Saturnalia, nothing to do with the winter solstice. That's it.
- [09:59]
A
Do you see how privileged I am to sit by such smart people and be able to ask the questions that most of the church kind of either wonders about but won't talk about on Skywatch tv. Thank you. I'm gonna go to the smartest person I've ever met with this next one. Joining me today is my beautiful mother, the founder of Whispering Ponies Ranch and one of the founders of Skywatch Television. Nita Horn is here. Can I call you Mom ON tv. Is that tacky? Mom?
- [10:29]
E
No, that's fine.
- [10:30]
A
When you think about Christmas, what does it mean to you? The real meaning? What is it about?
- [10:35]
E
This is a very difficult one to collapse because it's, it spans a whole lifetime. Because I think when you're young, you look at Christmas differently than you do when you're older because there's so much that's happened in your life and you say to yourself, what was your favorite one? And it's like, yeah, that one. Which one? Uh huh, Right. Because you can't pick the favorite. So if I'm looking at this and wanting to share something that I think would be meaningful to anyone, I would say, please, please, please consider what the most important part about Christmas, and that is the relationship that we have with our Savior. And then extrapolate that to one another. Peace and goodwill on earth. And I mean, seriously, think about the people in your own immediate family, in your immediate lifetime. The neighbors down the road that's got the barky dog, or whatever your circumstances are, let it go. That is not important in the light of eternity.
- [11:38]
F
Right?
- [11:39]
E
People are. And that would be what? To me, Christmas is about people. It's about remembering Christ and why he came and he spent that lifetime here. Started out one thing and ended up another, but he knew his journey. We don't know what our journey is, but what we give to him as our gift is what we can do for each other. And that would be my synopsis.
- [12:05]
A
That's good. You know, you're talking about if it's scripturally permissible to celebrate Christmas. And you guys have articulated such wonderful thoughts on that, I think of tremendous value, especially to those watching the show that may still be curious about the answer to that question. My experience growing up under my mother, you just hear this profound life experience and wisdom flowing out of her always. Well, that was my childhood. And of course, the late Dr. Thomas Horne, my father could not have asked for a better hero to live under and be raised by. And so I would not have thought at any juncture growing up that what I was doing was ignorantly participating in some kind of, you know, pagan ritual.
- [12:51]
F
Right?
- [12:51]
A
It was always taught to us that the real meaning of the holidays, it was Christ's birth and his resurrection and his crucifixion for your life and salvation. I mean, it took me into my, like late 20s to hear that there was a conspiracy about it, right? But just so you all know, my life experience was, this is the time of the year where we take exceptional memory of what it's really about.
- [13:15]
F
Right.
- [13:15]
A
And so. And of course, honey, my beautiful wife is here today as well. That was the same with you guys. You know, my wife grew up under missionaries Ray and Becky Sperry. Wonderful, soul to the earth people that have done untold good for the kingdom. They've gone over without fame or notoriety to places of the world. The Solomon Islands were, you know, little villages of people that need gospel of Jesus Christ. Well, they did not even start a Christmas event without first the reading of scripture.
- [13:46]
D
Yeah.
- [13:47]
A
Talk to us a little bit about that and what your favorite part of the holiday season is.
- [13:51]
F
Yeah. So growing up overseas and stuff, you didn't really have a lot. So, you know, presents weren't usually what we would do as a family is we always read the Christmas story. That was like the most important thing. Cause that is the reason for the season. Right. So we would always read the birth of Jesus. And we've implemented that with our kids too. So before we do anything on Christmas, we always read the story of Christ's birth and how that came about because it's an incredible story. And so we've always done that. And growing up as a kid on the other side of the equator, that was our hottest time of the year. So actually a lot of times on Christmas Day we would go water skiing.
- [14:30]
A
Oh.
- [14:31]
F
So that was always our fun thing we would get again, we didn't have a lot of stuff because in the islands there was not a lot of present type things. And my mom would sometimes bring stuff from the States to the islands and hold it and hide it in a closet or something to then give to us kids, you know, on Christmas Day and stuff. So it was always an adventure for sure.
- [14:52]
A
I saw a home video, I think of one of the Decembers one time, and your little brother, he's just randomly running around and jumping in and out of the waves. And of course, if anybody has watched me parent, they know that I'm like, where is the life preserver? Where is the boundary? Does he know how far he's allowed to go? When is he supposed to come back to shore? Is somebody watching what happens when you know, that's me, of course.
- [15:13]
F
Yeah. My dad.
- [15:15]
A
No, no, no. In fact, it's very affectionate and kind of adorable. But when they're visiting, if there's any activity that involves water and children, they tend to want to get the kids away from me so that they can have fun.
- [15:31]
B
Made you a great light lifeguard for several years.
- [15:33]
A
You gotta understand my background, you know, lit, certified. I'm responsible for things, insurance, safety. Like, that's my job. So anyway, I don't take for granted all the blind spots, but I watched a video and it's like, I wanna say in December, and it is hot.
- [15:47]
F
It is very hot.
- [15:48]
A
Your brother Thanos playing in the beach. And it honestly looks like something you'd pay thousands of dollars to go vacation to.
- [15:55]
E
It is.
- [15:55]
A
And this is their backyard.
- [15:57]
F
Yeah.
- [15:58]
A
So, I don't know. Pile of stuff under a tree or permanent paradise. What do you guys think? They're all saying? Paradise would have anyway. Derek, have you seen anything take place this year that reminded you of light coming into darkness? You do a lot of ministry. You cover the news. Your head is constantly in the Middle east and what's going on throughout the world.
- [16:21]
C
It's the reopening of Whispering Ponies Ranch.
- [16:24]
A
Oh, wow.
- [16:29]
C
As viewers know, last year was a really unexpected speed bump.
- [16:34]
A
Yes.
- [16:35]
C
And it was circumstances completely outside your control, the control of anyone in the ministry. And God knows, Cherise Barton worked over time trying to find some kind of resolution. But I believe that the fact that the ranch was open this year at all was the hand of God at work.
- [16:53]
F
Amen. Amen.
- [16:58]
A
Yeah. Last year was really tough for those unfamiliar. Very briefly, we lost our insurance that allowed us to do the rehabilitation camp at Whispering Ponies Ranch for the children that we serve that are wards of the state. They're, you know, victims of a foster care system that has allowed them to fall through the cracks. Many pulled out of sex trafficking. And when we lost our model, we still had camp. We did it elsewhere. And God opened a lot of doors. And we had experiences that were unique because of the fact we got to be counselors. And it was a total shakeup. Many, many episodes covering that. But, yeah, at the time, it was like a spiritual tsunami had come through here because it was the first camping season after my father had passed away. And we're getting ready to have the camping season, which is our most cherished time of the year. And we lost our model. And we were really like, well, okay, Lord, what is the identity of this ministry moving forward? This is what we're.
- [17:52]
C
And this is the work of the enemy, not just against Whispering Ponies Ranch, but against churches and church camps all across the country who have reported that if they've not been suddenly denied coverage, their rates have gone through the roof.
- [18:03]
A
Yes.
- [18:03]
C
So the enemy is using that to try to shut down churches and church camps across the country. So the fact, again, that Whispering Ponies Ranch operated last year and allowed, you know, what the enemy meant for harm, the Lord turned for good. But the new connections that have been made, oh yes, and the fact that the camp is open this year, to me, that is certainly in the lives of those children for sure.
- [18:28]
A
And Whispering Ponies Ranch and Skywatch TV came out of it more robust. People didn't like that move by the enemy. They offered counter moves and support. And we found out we had brothers and sisters in the Lord that we didn't even know were out there. So I did a video earlier this year called Satan's Fatal Mistake where we outlined exactly what that ended up actually equaling in terms of kingdom expansion. Sharon, do you have any special thoughts or memories that you want to share this holiday season?
- [18:58]
D
Well, I was raised in a family, didn't have a whole lot of money. Six kids, both parents worked for a while, but I went to a little bitty country church. And one of the things that was drilled into us as kids was that year round you thought about the people who couldn't come to church because they were bedridden or couldn't, for whatever reason, didn't feel comfortable coming to church. And we call them shut ins, the people who were shut ins. And we just did a couple of programs about your new book, Joe, talking about children who are in the system. I'm almost 73 at this point, and there are people my age and older who are stuck in a different kind of system. Yes, they cannot figure out how to get out of their home. Some of them are hoarders. They've literally put a world around them, a wall around them. I would say this Christmas, reach out to your neighbors, reach out to your family that for whatever reason, they can't get out. Give them the Christmas you might have given to someone else. Take it to them and share Jesus.
- [20:20]
E
That's good.
- [20:20]
C
That's good, that's good.
- [20:26]
E
I would like to share a little something that was kind of a unique way of God. Kind of. You know how we were talking about God is relational. The year that our house burnt down, the Christmas tree was still up. And I had every thing on that Christmas tree that represented my children growing up. There were little strawberry shortcake dolls that were too. They had outgrown. And I would take them out of their garbage and put it on the tree next year. And so I was always pilfering their little things, the scraps and putting on this tree. So this tree had everything that represented all of the Christmases prior, just little tiny things. I had homemade ornaments that they make in Sunday school, you know, Little handprints and everything you could imagine was on this tree. And this tree burned down and there was nothing left of the tree. It was toast because, you know, pine, it was a real tree, and it just was gone. So I'm standing in the rubble thinking, lord, I don't have even not an ornament to left. So what's really, really amazing about God and how he can surprise you is a few days later, Catherine, out of the blue, comes over and says, mom, I forgot to give this to you. And I don't know, but here it is. I open up this little brown paper bag and I look inside and it's a little ornament that Katie had made in Sunday school or preschool or somewhere. And I pull it out. It's this little picture with a little ornament of Katie. And it was like, God, this is for you. This is special for you. I didn't forget. You may think it was all gone, but here's a remnant anyway, that was so special to me. So I took. I still have that. But anyway, it was just God's little reminder that he. We may have suffered that, but he was watching and he knew and prepared her heart to begin the restoration of what was taken.
- [22:22]
A
Amen.
- [22:23]
E
That's a very beautiful.
- [22:25]
B
You've got to tell the end of that. Because, see, God has such a beautiful and pure sense of humor. Because what happened was when we were kids, remember you said earlier that a kid and an adult views Christmas completely differently. You were looking at this tree and you were seeing all these beautiful little things that your children had made and they meant so much to you, each and every one. As a child, we look at the shopping mall Christmas trees on TV and we see all of the glitter and the glitz and the glamour and the perfection. And we looked at our tree and it was like. You know that. That horror movie sound. I hated our Christmas tree. I thought it was so ugly. What's funny about this, okay, is that as a child, I always had it in my head, when I get older, we are going to have a shopping mall Christmas tree. It's going to be beautiful. All these years later, the house fire happened. And it took every one of those ornaments except for the one that Kathryn had had set aside for you. And through the miracle of modern technology and ebay, me and my siblings went shopping on ebay. And we got all the little drive through McDonald's Muppet characters that had a yellow piece of yarn strung around their neck and thrown on the Christmas tree over here.
- [23:34]
A
These were like the free toys you get when you get a happy Meal.
- [23:37]
F
Yeah.
- [23:37]
A
Like the little plastic toys. We just put yarn around them and hung them up on the tree. Our Christmas tree looked like a toy box had thrown up.
- [23:44]
B
Because for, like, it's what it looked like. Seriously. For like, three or four years after the fire, we kept trying to produce Mom's dream Christmas tree. And we would. Beautiful tree with the silvers and the golds and there was. Sometimes we would throw in purple. And it was beautiful shopping mall perfection. It really was. We had an eye for it. We were trying. All right. But it wasn't the tree you wanted. So one day, and we went all the way down to the youngest grandkids. We had them make all the same things that we lost and newer ones, and we brought them to you in a never ending, ceaseless time.
- [24:21]
A
It was a few months of collecting these things and having the kids rebuild the little paper ornaments and the little things.
- [24:27]
B
Yeah. And endearingly. All right. Endearingly. We're texting each other. Oh, I got this on ebay. Oh, I found that. Oh, we got this. Or whatever. Allie remade those. And Joe did this. I painted that. Endearingly. We kept referring to it in these threads as, okay, update on the puke tree. I've got this.
- [24:44]
A
The puke tree.
- [24:45]
B
Do you have that? Yeah, the puke tree. This is how we remembered it. Oh, my gosh.
- [24:50]
A
When we were kids, you know, the LJN wrestling action figures. You know, the little thumb. You see the 80s, the little wrestlers. You stick them on your thumbs and you're supposed to do this with a bunch of.
- [25:00]
C
I'm a little older than that.
- [25:02]
A
Well, okay. But you remember these toys for sure. Well, when I got bored playing with them, they became a part of the puke tree. So, like, this is not a Christmas tree that you can envision. We almost need a picture of it. It's like little wrestler figures and bizarro toys.
- [25:18]
B
Yeah. So we finally. It was the day that we were all lined up, and Mama had no idea why the Christmas tree is just bare and we don't have anything on. And I'm telling her, just hang on, because we're gonna do it together as a family. We're gonna pull out all the really beautiful, the silver, the gold, the purple. I've got an eye for it. We're gonna make this shopping mall perfection. And then at the very last minute, we all lined up. She has no idea what's happening. And all of us head out with these tiny little ornament boxes and one after another, the ugliest things you've ever seen. But it's funny. Cause we're standing there talking about this, and mom is just. She's getting the Christmas tree she lost and the fire. And later on, after the. This beautiful ceremony of the puke tree, Mom's like, but we need to change the name. We can't call it Puke Tree. And I'm like, no, no, no. Hold on. And then I told you the story. Allie texted this, Joe texted that. We got the grandkids over here. Everybody's building this beautiful puke tree, and we're all crying all summer long. So we're like. We're calling it the puke tree. So now in our family, there you have it. A happy little tradition. Our family's favorite Christmas tree is the ugliest thing you have ever seen. And it's called the puke Tree. And we couldn't be.
- [26:28]
E
Let me end on a happy note. Just so you guys know, when we put that tree up, it did not come down until after the Christmas that papa had passed. And then I took it down, but it stayed up the whole year. That was the only year that I ever left the tree up, but I couldn't take it down. We enjoyed that thing all year long. He loved it. It has this really goofy little thing at the top of the. It spins around, and it really did look like something you would see on a cartoon. But it's my favorite ever, and I do have pictures. I'll drag one up for you.
- [27:06]
A
Well, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, we're all out of time. But as we button up the year 2025 again, we here at Skywatch TV just want to thank you for your prayers, your support. We would not be here able to do the ministry of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the four corners of the world without your help. And we pray that you will appreciate and totally embrace the true meaning of the season, which is Jesus Christ. We pray that your holiday is filled with hope, renewal, and healing from all of us here at Skywatch Television, to you in your homes and all that, you know, your families, your extended friends and families. Take Sharon's advice. Go outreach to somebody that might be overlooked this season. Go say hello to a neighbor you've never spoken with and share the love of Jesus Christ with that person as well. Everybody here in studio. Everybody up here on panel. I'm Joe Artis Horn. Keep your eyes on the prize, which is Jesus Christ. We'll be back,
- [28:14]
E
Sam.