Hell-O-Ween
Please stand as we read our newest memory Scripture together …
Jude 1:24-25
“To Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy –
“To the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”
And our memory refresher verse(s) for today is(are) …
Philippians 4:8
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.”
Please open your Bibles to Deuteronomy 18:9-15
Samhain Does anyone know what Samhain is/was?
Encyclopedia Britannica
“In ancient Britain and Ireland, the Celtic Festival of Samhain was observed on October 31, at the end of summer…. Between sunset on October 31 until sunrise on November 1, the Celts believed that the veil between our existence and the spirit world was the thinnest. The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes on this day and the autumnal festival acquired sinister significance, with ghosts, witches, goblins, black cats, fairies and demons of all kinds said to be roaming about. It was the time to placate the supernatural powers controlling the processes of nature. In addition, Samhain was thought to be the most favorable time for divinations concerning marriage, luck, health, and death. It was the only day on which the help of the devil was invoked for such purposes.
“In Ireland especially, people thought that ghosts and spirits roamed after dark on Samhain. They lit candles or lanterns to keep the spirits away, and if they had to go outside, they wore costumes and masks to frighten the spirits or to keep from being recognized by these unearthly beings.”
What do we see in Samhain? October 31, souls of the dead, ghosts, witches, goblins, fairies, demons of all kinds roaming about, divinations, invoking the devil for help, lanterns to keep the spirits away, costumes and masks …
Let’s see what the Bible has to say about such things … Deuteronomy 18:9-15
(Prayer for help …)
Now, just imagine that you are a Christian who actually knows the Word of God and you go into a land where Samhain is part of the local religion.
What do you do?
Do you go out, stand on a platform and declare that they are all going to Hell?
If you tried that in a thoroughly pagan land such as northern Ireland was in those days, you probably would have been forcefully invited to join into (and I mean literally being thrown into) one of their fires that were used to ward off evil spirits.
What else could you do? Could you try to find a way to integrate their pagan beliefs into Christianity by introducing something similar enough that it would be accepted?
The church of Rome did that when they declared October 31st and November 1st to be days to remember the “saints”. November 2nd was made “All Souls Day” to remember those in heaven and purgatory. There was even an attempt made to create an “All Dammed” day to remember those in hell but seemed to be a little too much.
What else could you do? Could you stay in and pray that the Lord would enable you to somehow to reach these people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Could you do this while still keeping the Gospel pure and undefiled?
Let’s try to look at it this way …
Suppose in your spiritual life you are driving down the highway; the Highway of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Bible, God’s Holy Word is your GPS. And suppose you are passing an on ramp but the on ramp just doesn’t look right. It appears that someone is trying to bring something onto the Highway of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that is not in the Bible. Suppose they are saying that the devil is not an actual being. Suppose they are saying that there is an evil force at work in the universe that opposes the good force in the universe but it’s not a devil. Suppose they are saying that there really is no devil and there really are no demons in opposition to what the Bible says. (Luke 11:14, Mark 9:25, Matthew 25:41)
What do you do? Do you move over to let them merge onto the Highway of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with this false teaching?
What if you do let them merge and by letting them merge you are entertaining their false teaching as truth. You start to read the Bible and you see where Jesus is casting out demons and where Jesus is saying that Hell was created for the devil and his angels.
What do you do with that?
Do you believe the Bible and reject what you let into your life?
Do you start to believe that maybe the Bible is not always right?
Do you stop reading the Bible because there is too much conflict between what you have been told and what the Bible says?
You see, when we are traveling on the Highway of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and something un-Biblical tries to merge onto the Highway we need to recognize that such an action could ultimately result in a spiritually fatal tragedy.
OK. So, you say, “We know that we should only believe what is in the Holy Bible but what is harmful about dressing our kids up and letting them go around collecting candy? Is that REALLY celebrating Samhain like they did in ancient Ireland?”
When I was young a lot of kids dressed up as ghosts and witches and others dressed up as hobos. Today kids dress up mostly as characters from cartoons; although others dress up as witches based on literature and movies such as Harry Potter.
There is a danger when we trivialize and try to spiritually neutralize the occult and hell and even heaven.
There is a danger when:
- We have “good” witches
- We make jokes about Hell – Hell is NOT funny
- We make jokes about Heaven, throne room of God
- The Holy Lord becomes the man upstairs
- We joke about partying with our friends in hell
- We make jokes about eternity
- We call Jesus the man up in the sky
Every time we trivialize the horror of Hell, every time we trivialize the Awesomeness of God, every time we trivialize the thirst the devil has for damming our souls to Hell we lose respect for the eternity that lies ahead for every one of us.
You see, trivializing things of eternal consequence has the effect of putting a mask on the enormous truth of eternity.
We know for certain that Biblical ignorance will allow false teachings to enter into our lives and take hold, so, let’s try looking at it from the opposite perspective.
Imagine a slave auction. The slave is stripped so that he can be examined physically for health. You don’t want to buy a lame slave, right? And the people who want to own him start bidding for him and the winner gets ownership papers and the slave for the rest of his life.
Now, let’s say we take this image and turn it upside down. You are not in a crowd but you are standing all alone where the crowd would stand during an auction.
You are not buying a slave but you are choosing WHO you will belong to.
You are deciding whose slave YOU will be!
There are two platforms; one to your left and one to your right. There is a “being” on each of these platforms.
At this auction there is also a Book that describes the two beings and that Book is on a stand between the platforms.
On one platform is a beautiful being, shining like an angel of light. He is offering you everything you could want in this world. Health, prosperity, status, gratification of every physical desire you could have, a life of pursuing whatever makes you happy, pleasures of every kind. He tells you that if you choose him you will find out what life is really all about.
On the other platform is a human who looks as if He should be dead. He says that if you choose Him you will find true, eternal life but you can hardly believe it because He looks like He should be dead.
The choice seems obvious. The nearly dead man says, “Read the book.” The beautiful being says, “Don’t bother with that old book; it’s a waste of time and it will just confuse your mind.”
It’s such an easy choice, you want to go with the beautiful being and live in luxury and pleasures but the nearly dead Man has a look of love in His eyes that is unfathomable.
Why would this nearly dead Man want you to choose Him?
Why would He want you to read the book?
For some unknown reason you go to the Book and I open it.
As you read through the Book you find things that say …
“Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” 2 Corinthians 11:14
You see that the Book says, “(The devil) was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
John 8:44b
And the Book says, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8
In your mind you wonder who this is talking about, is it the beautiful being that looks like an angel of light or is it the Man who looks like He’s nearly dead? So, you look up and the Man who looks like He is nearly still looks nearly dead but the beautiful being HAS changed.
His appearance has not changed so much but there is a menacing brutality about him. Is he really just masquerading as an angel of light? Is he really a murderer and liar? Is he really prowling around like a roaring lion seeking to devour you? It is almost like he is grasping at you with his mind. He doesn’t want you to choose HIM, he wants to possess and control YOU! He HATES that you are reading the Book and he wants you to stop NOW!
In terror you look into the book again and you read this strange passage found in Isaiah 53:1-10
“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem.
“Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him smitten by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed.”
Who is this talking about? Who took up our pain and bore our suffering? Who was pierced, crushed and wounded?
Could it be the Man who looks as if He should be dead?
And then you read a Man called Jesus saying in John 12:32-33
“When I am lifted up from the earth (to be crucified on the cross, I) will draw all men to myself.” (Jesus) said this to show the kind of death He was going to die.”
And then in Revelation 5:11-14 you read …
“Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
“Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: ‘To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’
“The four living creatures said, ‘Amen,’ and the elders fell down and worshiped.”
When you look up again you finally understand that the man who looked as if He was nearly dead was in that condition because of you.
He had not suffered because of His crimes but because of yours.
He had died for your sins so that you would not need to.
Now you look again at the beautiful being who looked like an angel of light and you can see that He wants to destroy you forever.
And you look at the Man who was slain for you and you know that He wants to save you and give you eternal life.
Now the choice is easy because the Truth has been revealed!
What was it that had made the difference?
What was it that had enabled you to see that the beautiful being who was shining like an angel of light was actually a being of destruction and death?
What was it that had enabled you to see that the man who looked like He was almost dead was actually the Giver of Life?
It was the Book.
The Book held the truth.
What happens when we try to merge ANYTHING into the Gospel of Jesus Christ? It masks the truth and diminishes the greatness of God’s glory.
What happens when we examine any new teaching against what is in the Bible? We end up accepting the teaching if it is in the Bible and it increases our nearness to the Lord. Or we end up rejecting the teaching if it is not in the Bible and we avoid a dangerous spiritual pitfall.
So, what do we do with Halloween?
Look in the Book. Do not be deceived!
Final thoughts and closing prayer
