Halloween

Ephesians 5:11-13 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. (12) For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. (13) But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

I had always celebrated Halloween as a kid. But in recent years, I have grown more and more weary of it, wanting nothing to do with it for the last several years. But it's funny that when people find out that I don't do Halloween, most never ask me why. They just look at me like I have two heads or even ridicule me (fellow Christians included). So I wanted to use this as an opportunity to explain my reasons. [This ended up much longer than I realized. There is a summary at the end.]

Symbols of Death and Evil

First, and most obvious, is the fact that Halloween exalts death. From ghosts (which are unbiblical) and skulls to blood and gore, Halloween trivializes the idea of death and therefore its root cause: sin (Romans 5:12). The Christian life is contrary to death and darkness. The only death we should rejoice in is the death of our Messiah on the cross. And He died to bring us life, then He rose from the grave and conquered death.

John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I [Jesus] am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

It also celebrates evil of every kind, especially the occult. We are warned about such things in Deuteronomy 18. Examples include witchcraft, divination, astrology, necromancy, etc.

Fellowship with the World

When Christians celebrate Halloween, I believe they are compromising in order to be acceptable to the world.

We are warned against compromising with the world all throughout the Word of God.

2 Corinthians 6:14, 17 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? ... (17) Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you...

James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

1 John 2:15-17 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (16) For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. (17) And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

I see this as just one of many areas in which the Church in general is compromising Biblical principles in order to make friends with the world. The idea that some Christians have is that we should look more like the world in order to attract unbelievers to us. But the Bible is clear that believers are to stand apart from the world, and it is the Holy Spirit who draws people to faith through the preaching of the Gospel.

The Root of the Problem

In the past, I was able to dismiss these other difficulties mentioned above, choosing instead to believe that Halloween could be good clean fun. I mean, what's wrong with kids getting dressed up and going around begging for candy? Well I'm certainly not opposed to candy, and I don't necessarily have a problem with my kids dressing up as certain innocent characters. The problem lies in the context in which these things take place. For example, I also don't have a problem with raisin cakes either, but in the context of Hosea 3:1, we can see that there are certain situations in which they are extremely inappropriate.

Hosea 3:1 (NKJV) Then the LORD said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the LORD for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans."

Samhain

That brings me to my primary disagreement with this holiday. Almost everything about modern Halloween practices can be traced back to ungodly pagan celebrations and rituals.

Halloween can be traced back to the Celtic pagan festival, Samhain. The Celts had four holidays that centered around the transition of seasons, but Samhain was the biggest and most important one. Their calendar year began on November 1, so October 31 would have been their New Year's Eve.

"According to the Celtic pagan religion, known as Druidism, the spirits of those who had died in the preceding year roamed the earth on Samhain evening. The Celts sought to ward off these spirits with offerings of food and drink. The Celts also built bonfires at sacred hilltop sites and performed rituals, often involving human and animal sacrifices, to honor Druid deities."
-- Microsoft Encarta

As the Romans conquered Celtic territories, they incorporated their traditions into their own religious practices. "In Britain, Romans blended local Samhain customs with their own pagan harvest festival honoring Pomona, goddess of fruit trees." This is probably one of the origins of the practice of bobbing for apples (which was at one time used as a form of divination).

Apparently the Celts, as well as most pagan peoples, were Sun worshippers. Samhain was the summer's end, a time at which "the Earth nods a sad farewell to the [sun] God."

"According to Irish mythology, during that night the great shield of Scathach was lowered, allowing the barriers between the worlds to fade and the forces of chaos to invade the realms of order, the material world conjoining with the world of the dead."
-- from http://www.crystalinks.com/halloween03.html (produced by a so-called psychic and reiki master; not recommended except for the purpose of research)

In other words, they believed that the veil which separated the spirit world and our world was transparent at the time of Samhain. "During this interval the normal order of the universe is suspended, the barriers between the natural and the supernatural are temporarily removed, the sidh lies open and all divine beings and the spirits of the dead move freely among men and interfere sometimes violently, in their affairs" ("Halloween Origins and Customs," Jeremiah Project, originally citing Celtic Mythology, p. 127).

Wicca

Samhain and other Celtic festivals are still celebrated today by neo-pagans and Wiccans. You can view the different Wiccan holidays in the "Multiculturalism in the Armed Forces in the 20th Century" 2002 calendar (disturbing, I know). Take this excerpt for example from wicca.com:

"It is generally celebrated on October 31st, but some traditions prefer November 1st. It is one of the two "spirit-nights" each year, the other being Beltane. It is a magical interval when the mundane laws of time and space are temporarily suspended, and the Thin Veil between the worlds is lifted. Communicating with ancestors and departed loved ones is easy at this time, for they journey through this world on their way to the Summerlands. It is a time to study the Dark Mysteries and honor the Dark Mother and the Dark Father, symbolized by the Crone and her aged Consort."

One Wiccan described Samhain as "the most beloved of pagan holidays." Well, forgive me if I have reservations about celebrating the most beloved pagan holiday.

All Hallows Day

So what? So the Druids, Wiccan, and neopagans celebrate their demonic sabbaths on or near October 31. What does that have to do with Christians? After Rome conquered the lands of the Celts, Christianity came to those lands. Sparing all the details, let me say that instead of preaching the pure Gospel to the people, they were allowed to “believe the gospel” (which was a different gospel) and retain their pagan beliefs as well. Of course we know that is impossible. A person cannot serve two masters (Matt. 6:24).

We also know that by this time much of the realm of Christianity had been influenced by the world and had been compromised (Constantine, etc.). It is a worthwhile study to take the time to understand the Babylonian, pagan influences that are present within the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). The following from Jeremiah Project is only one example:

"… in the 7th century, Pope Boniface IV introduced All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs, to replace the pagan festival of the dead. It was observed on May 13. In 834, Gregory III moved All Saint's Day from May 13 to Nov. 1 and for Christians, this became an opportunity for remembering before God all the saints who had died and all the dead in the Christian community. Oct. 31 thus became All Hallows' Eve ('hallow' means 'saint').

"Sadly, though, many of the customs survived and were blended in with Christianity. Numerous folk customs connected with the pagan observances for the dead have survived to the present."

I was very confused the first time I heard someone say that we Christians need to take back Halloween. I now understand that this is what they meant. I know that there are things associated with Christmas and Easter that are of pagan origin. But there is a legitimate, biblical aspect to those holidays, namely the remembrance of the birth of Christ and the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. However, with Halloween, there is nothing we can point to in the Bible to make its celebration valid. The facts are that Halloween derives its name from All Hallow’s Eve. Apparently it was a common practice to honor the death of a martyr on the anniversary (a practice I don’t necessarily disagree with, at least not the honoring part), but the RCC, "feeling that every martyr should be venerated, appointed a common day [Nov. 1] for all." (from Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent) All Souls’ Day follows on Nov. 2, showing just how unbiblical these holidays are:

"The theological basis for the feast is the doctrine that the souls which, on departing from the body, are not perfectly cleansed from venial sins, or have not fully atoned for past transgressions, are debarred from the Beatific Vision, and that the faithful on earth can help them by prayers, almsdeeds and especially by the sacrifice of the Mass."
-- from Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent

Satanism

And of course I can’t forget the most forthright group of the bunch, the Satanists and Devil worshippers who are very candid about who they serve. They make no bones about it (no pun intended). This is one subject that many Christians don’t even want to think about, much less discuss. Instead they tend to ignore it, and so it is with their involvement in Halloween. But I think we must look into this somewhat. A rather shallow search reveals exactly what one Devil worshipper thinks about Halloween:

"…Halloween is the most important Satanic festival. Obviously I do not agree with fundamentalist Christians that animal or human sacrifice are necessary (or even desirable) aspects of Satanic practice. But I do happen to agree that when people dress in costumes, go trick-or-treating, and decorate their homes with various Halloween symbols (which I also consider to be "occult"), they are indeed glorifying the Prince of Darkness and His ways, however unknowingly. I share the ancient Celtic belief that, as Samhain, Halloween represents a "gateway" between the carnal world and the spirit world, through which the spirits of the dead and the yet-to-be-born are temporarily free to pass and visit upon the living…"

"To me, it is no accident that midnight, the darkest hour of the night (also called "the Witching Hour"), is considered to be the beginning of a new day. Likewise, Halloween, the "darkest" night of the year (in the sense of being the most supernatural and occult-oriented night of the year -- even from a secular standpoint), is the beginning of a new year. It represents the victory of darkness over light. It is the night when the Devil roams the earth and possesses people to make merry and give in to their darker, "unrestrained" selves, most often by wearing these darker selves on the outside as costumes. Halloween is the one night of the year when grown adults are allowed to act like children, and we are allowed to temporarily do away with everyday reality and be whatever we truly want to be, in the deepest, darkest heart of our imaginations. Halloween is literally the Season of the Witch, a time for myth and magic, for ghost stories and the occult. It is the night when the creatures of the wild make ready to hibernate for winter, and to sleep and live in dreams until the call of spring wakens them to life and lust. Halloween, to me, is the Devil's Night, pure and simple.”

This person then goes on to suggest some ways Halloween can be celebrated as a Satanic holiday. A poem is suggested, the words of which I will not duplicate, not because they contain profanity, but because they are they most appalling exaltation of Satan I have ever seen.

Summary

Let’s just review the reasons I no longer participate in Halloween.

1. It extols death and evil, therefore it is a celebration of sin.
2. It involves compromising with the world system.
3. Halloween customs and traditions can be traced back to the pagan festival of Samhain practiced by the Druids. This involves:
   1. the worship of nature and the seasons
   2. animal and human sacrifices
   3. divination
   4. superstition
4. Halloween is an unholy sabbath recognized by Wiccans and other witches
5. The effort has been made to sanctify these pagan rituals and traditions for "the church," but the Bible is clear that we cannot purify an unclean thing, but an unclean thing can certainly corrupt us (Haggai 2:11-13, 1 Cor. 5:6)
6. Halloween is a special night for Satanists, Luciferians, and devil worshippers

I hope this information is useful. I have tried to be as accurate as I can be. I hope you will honestly consider these points. Here are some other websites that might be useful if you're interested:

Rethinking Halloween
Jeremiah Project
The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows - Library of Congress Website
A Seductive Bridge Between Two Worlds

Some examples of Halloween from a wicked perspective. THESE WEBSITES ARE EVIL. FOR THE PURPOSE OF RESEARCH ONLY. USE CAUTION.

Inner Sanctum
How to Celebrate the God and Goddess at Samhain
Crystalinks
The Celtic Fire Festivals

Another Jesus?

Many people are talking about Jesus today. On the surface, this might seem exciting to some. But in light of the Bible, Christians should be very cautious when someone starts talking about Jesus. For a long time, I thought it was great anytime a person would name the name of Jesus. Today I am wary, and I listen carefully to the Jesus they are describing. This is because I now understand that the Bible teaches that a person can believe a false gospel.

Galatians 1:6-7 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: (7) Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

Paul clearly says here that the Galatian Christians had turned from the true gospel they had received to a counterfeit gospel. It is a little confusing in English, but it helps to understand that there are two different Greek words used in these verses which are both translated another in English. In the first phrase ("...unto another gospel..."), Paul used the word heteros, which means 'another of a different kind.' In the second ("Which is not another..."), he used the word allos, which means 'another of the same kind.' The importance of what Paul is saying here is underscored by his next statement:

Galatians 1:8-9 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. (9) As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

Paul also speaks of another Jesus, another spirit, and another gospel in his second letter to the Corinthians:

2 Corinthians 11:3-4 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. (4) For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

Paul used the word heteros (another of a different kind) to describe "another spirit" and "another gospel" (similar to Galatians 1:7). But for "another Jesus," he used the word allos (another of the same kind). So he is literally saying someone could preach another Jesus of the same kind, but they would receive a different spirit (not the Holy Spirit) and accept a different gospel. And we know that there is only one Jesus (John 14:6, 1 Tim. 2:5). So any "Christ" which produces a different spirit and gospel is not Jesus Christ but antichrist. This is why it is so important to understand what the gospel is and is not. Interestingly enough, the Greek prefix anti- can mean "against", but it also means "in the place of" or "instead of." So "another Jesus" could be one that stands "in the place of" the true Jesus -- that is one that stands "in the place of" Christ, or "anti-Christ."

We often picture an antichrist as some malevolent character with the number 666 emblazoned on his forehead. Now I do believe that there will be a specific man (the son of perdition, the man of lawlessness, the beast, etc. -- often referred to as the Antichrist) who will try to set himself up "in the place of" Christ. But 1 John speaks of many antichrists and the spirit of antichrist. This is a very broad topic (one I hope to cover in detail later), but suffice it to say that anything that we place in the stead of Jesus Christ is antichrist. This should really sober us up. We can even come under the umbrella of antichrist if we are trying to do something that only the Messiah can do -- if we are trying to pay our own debt of sin. That is why we cannot be saved by "the works of the law." (Gal. 2:16)

Going back to the subject of "another Jesus," the cults definitely fall into this category. One way I would define a cult is a group whose doctrines pervert the person of Christ or His redemptive work (or both). Many cults, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, teach that Jesus is a created being and that His death on the cross does not atone for our sin. Mormons teach that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers, and the Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus is Michael the archangel. Now to the Bible believing Christian, these should be obvious examples of "another Jesus." But there is a more subtle "Jesus" that is often preached, even by those who should know better. I'm talking about presenting Jesus correctly in person, but misrepresenting His work. All the time, I hear pastors inviting people to "begin a relationship with Jesus" or to "believe in Jesus." The problem is that they never tell people why they should trust Jesus. Absent from their message is mankind's problem of sin. We have offended a just and holy God, and His wrath already abides on us (John 3:36, Romans 1:18, Romans 5:9, Eph. 5:6, Col. 3:6, 1 Thess. 1:10, Rev. 6:15-17).

We must place our faith in Jesus Christ, not only who He is, but also what He did. So what did He do? When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." (John 1:29) On the cross, Jesus Christ bore our sins, and His soul became an offering to God for the sin of the world. (Heb. 9:28, Isaiah 53:10-12, Eph. 5:2, Heb 10:10) The Word of God is perfectly clear that we cannot approach God on the basis of our works; only by our simple faith in Christ and His finished work on Calvary's cross can we be justified, sanctified, and redeemed. (Rom. 3:28, 1 Cor. 6:11, Heb. 10:10, 14, 1 Pet. 1:18-19, Gal. 3:13)

A sobering realization, in the light of these passages and others, is that we cannot take away from what Christ did on the cross, nor can we add to it. And I think the most common error is that of adding to Christ's work of atonement. Romans 11:6 is very clear that grace and works are mutually exclusive; Romans 4:16 says that our salvation comes through our faith, so that it may be by grace. In other words if we expect God to do anything based on something we have done, it cannot be by God's grace because (in our eyes) we have earned something, and grace is unearned, unmerited favor.

Romans 4:3-5 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. (4) Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. (5) But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

So if we say we place our faith in Christ and Him crucified, yet we try to merit something from God at the same time by our own works, then we frustrate God's grace because we are essentially saying that what Christ did was not enough.

Galatians 2:20-21 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (21) I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

I think we can draw the conclusion, then, that to trust in our own efforts aimed at pleasing God and earning something from Him is to believe in "another Jesus." Please realize just how important it is to place our faith in the correct Jesus, the one described in the Bible.

Philippians 3:8-9 ... I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, (9) And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.