Bible Prophecy and Inspiration

Yesterdays post we went over the history or origin of Halloween.  If you haven’t gotten to read that yet it will be best before continuing.  If you have read it let’s continue on how scripture addresses the pagan things of this world. 

2 Corinthians 6:14-15 – ¹⁴Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? ¹⁵What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?

Belial is wickedness so the verse is essentially hitting on it twice and Paul is reminding us that Christ is righteousness and there’s no room for Him to be mixed in with wickedness.  The Church needs to stay away from evil.

Once again Israel is warned not to participate in evil and what do they do?  They participate in Baal worship!  Now I don’t think for two seconds that most Israelites really gave much thought to this.  It was a lot like Halloween to them.  Hey it’s cultural, historical, and traditional.  I love God and when I participate in this festival Baal thing it’s just that.  I’m celebrating a tradition.

Numbers 25:1-3 – 1 While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, ² who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods. ³ So Israel joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor. And the LORD’s anger burned against them.

What kind of reaction or sense of humor did the Lord have towards this?

Numbers 25:4 – ⁴ The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the LORD’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.”

Now in today’s age we might focus on the sexual immorality and God hates it like all sin, but it’s the sacrificing and worshiping the false pagan religion that breaks the first commandment “You shall have no other god’s before me”.

Ephesians 5:8-11 –    ⁸For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ⁹(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) ¹⁰and find out what pleases the Lord. ¹¹Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 – ²¹Test everything. Hold on to the good. ²²Avoid every kind of evil.

Saul abolished all the sorcerers and mediums and then went out to seek one of them after Samuel died.  Why did he do this?  Because the Lord had left him and he wanted guidance.  Samuel was summons from the dead by the witch.  He had a word for Saul and that was since he was disobedient to the Lord concerning the Amelekites he and his sons would be joining him soon.   Saul knew it was evil to seek the dead, that’s why he abolished it when he was in good with God still.

Witchcraft and paganism is evil in God’s Word and constantly spoken against.

So what’s the problem with Halloween?  It is a totally pagan holiday that resurfaced.

Look at it.  It is a day of celebrating the dead walking around amongst us.  Look at the costumes and all the traditions are still intact.  Not only is there not one Godly thing about it, on the contrary it is full of paganism, spirits of the dead, and witchcraft.  Haunted Houses and graphic murderous movies.  Costumes of witches, devils, skeletons, etc.

They’re not missing the point or spirit of Halloween, they’ve hit it right on the head.

There’s no hidden message in Halloween.  You don’t have to play the record backwards to hear the hidden warning or subliminal message.  It’s right there in front of us. 

The Church has failed in two areas concerning Halloween that I can see.

One, tradition is very important in America and once one participates in it they’re locked in.

Two, the church doesn’t take the Word of God literal or serious enough to know God doesn’t like or appreciate His people participating in pagan practices.

The goal of any of my posts is to always encourage those who love the Lord to seek the scriptures closely and always strive to become closer to Him.  The Bible is His love letter to each and everyone of us.  God Bless each one of you.

Is Halloween a good holiday for Christians?

Well I think the first thing anyone has to do if they care about what the Lord thinks is to investigate it.  If you don’t care what the Lord thinks, don’t.  However, if you don’t care about what the Lord thinks as a Christian, you have big problems according to God’s Word.

The first thing we need to know about Halloween is that it has a history to look at.

It appears the Celts in Ireland had two main feasts a year.  One around May and one around November 1^st.  The one around November 1^st was called Samhain (pronounced Sah-ween).  The Celts believed at this time period the natural and the super-natural had the barrier removed.  So the dead spirits were allowed to roam at this time.

Celtic priests were called Druids.  They were the ones in charge of trying to keep the evil spirits away and did so by doing sacrifices of crops and animals, sometimes humans, to ward off the spirits.  They gathered up the bones and did bone fires, which is where we get bonfires today.  So the original origins have an occultist trying to scare away the dead.  The Celts were not Christians.  In fact when the Catholic Church was trying cover up pagan holidays they created All Saints Day on November 1^st to combat Samhain.  All Saints Day was supposed to honor the passed on Saints of the past, I guess like a memorial day of sorts.

It appears the Romans took over the Celts and added their own touches.  They had a pagan festival in which they honored Pomona their goddess of the fruit and trees.  It is believed this is where bobbing for apples were added into the mix.

Trick or Treat probably has a few origins but the ones that are most troubling are related to Samhain.  When one looks today at what’s involved in Halloween it makes sense.

The dead that were roaming around could be friendly loved ones, but then again they could be evil spirits that meant to do harm.  Some villagers would dress up in demonic costumes so they would blend in with the unfriendly spirits, also they would pass out fruits and nuts to gain favor with them so they would possibly leave them alone.

We talked about the bone fires, bobbing for apples, but how about the jack o’ lantern?  It appears that turnips and beets were used to make faces in originally celebrating Samhain but America had a lot of pumpkins for the using.  I have heard both the faces were used to scare away evil dead spirits, but I have also heard that they can be a house for those to embody for a short period of time also.  It was so they could look out of since they had no body.

Black Cats, Bats, other creatures of the night all are believed to have interaction with the dead.

Other groups of the occult love Halloween.  Witches, Satanists, etc., if It’s not their favorite holiday it’s one of them.

What does the Bible have to say about these things? 

When God had the Israelites take over the Promised Land He gave them a warning.

Deuteronomy 18:9-14 – 9 When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. ¹⁰ Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, ¹¹ or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. ¹² Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. ¹³ You must be blameless before the LORD your God.  ¹⁴ The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so.

God doesn’t have a sense of humor when it comes to evil.  As a fallen race we want to believe he does or doesn’t really care about it.  Tomorrow let’s read on to what He also says.