Living In The Light! "What's Wrong With Halloween?”

Ashingdon AM 25 10 2009 Living in the Light - What’s Wrong with Halloween? Ephesians 5:11-5:17 Deut 18:9-12

Late one dark night, two men were walking home after a party.

They were tired and desperate to get home

So they decided to take a shortcut through a cemetery.

They got to about the middle of the graveyard

they were startled and stopped moving.

There was a terrifying noise,

“TAP-TAP-TAP” coming from the shadows.

Trembling with fear,

they spotted an old man with a hammer and chisel, chipping away at one of the headstones.

“Hey Mister,” one of them said after catching his breath.

“You SCARED us half to death.

We thought you were a GHOST!

What are you doing working here so late at night?”

“Those fools!” the old man grumbled.

“They spelt my name wrong!”

Next Saturday is Halloween.

Halloween is one of those days that is viewed by different people in different ways.

Even here in church this morning there are different views and opinions.

Some people think that it’s just an opportunity for children to dress up and have fun collecting sweets and that really it’s not a big deal.

Some people think that due to the pagan origin and continued ties to evil that it should not be celebrated at all.

Let me say from the start that my message this morning is not about opinion it is about truth, the truth contained in God’s Word the Bible, the truth that God has given us and expects us to follow.

There may be times when you find it difficult to reconcile God’s truth to your own opinion or worldview, friends, God’s truth is eternal, it does not change, but our understanding of the truth does change as we allow God to work in our hearts and minds.

Maybe right now your sitting there and still thinking the same question many people ask,

“What’s wrong with Halloween?”

This morning we are going to answer that question from the Word of God

DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO AVOIDS BLACK CATS IN ORDER TO AVOID BAD LUCK?

This belief goes back to the Middle Ages when it was thought that a black cat was the companion or mascot of a group of witches, and that it changed into a witch or Satan after seven years of service.

People reasoned, a cat crossing someones path might be a witch or the Devil in disguise, up to no good.

It is true that the devil is up to no good, but he is not disguised as a black cat.

HE IS MORE CLEVER THAN THAT.

2 Corinthians 11:14-15 “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness...”

Satan may well appear as a person of light, meaning someone who is godly or well meaning.

How sad is it that today’s enlightened world encourages children to dress up as Satan or other evil things.

How sad is it that most parents will recognise that evil exists in the world but refuse to believe that Satan is real and not some sort of cartoon character.

Unfortunately, many people don’t believe that the devil really exists.

They think he’s a figment of our imagination –a character out of Dante’s Inferno.

They just don’t get it. They deny the obvious.

This Halloween, people will encourage children to masquerade as the devil and his gang of evil spirits.

Thousands of Christians will fully sanction this homage to Satan in direct violation to the explicit teaching of the Word of God!

Many Christian homes will be decorated with all the paraphernalia and trappings of Lucifer’s kingdom.-

Skulls, ghosts, witches, cauldrons, monsters, everything dark – anything macabre.

Halloween is a celebration of darkness.

I don’t like darkness.

Darkness hides things.

In the Bible, darkness symbolizes evil.

When I was a boy I used to sleep with a light on in my room.

It always made me feel better.

Friends, we are not supposed to live in darkness.

What we should be doing is lighting up the world

with God’s love.

Sometimes we can quote a verse of scripture out of context .

And misconceptions can come when trying to translate a concept from one language to another.

Anyone Eat Rice Krispies?

What noise do they make?

SNAP, CRACKLE, POP!

Ok in Chinese its translated as:

Break, crush, explode

The Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan

Finger-lickin’ good

translates as

Tastes like human fingers

The Pepsi Cola company found this out doing an ad campaign in Taiwan.

From 1963-1967 Their slogan was

“Come Alive with the Pepsi Generation.”

Unfortunately, translated into Chinese it read, “Pepsi Will Bring Your Ancestors Back From the Dead.”

Needless to say the ad’s were canceled - Pepsi couldn’t quite live up to that claim.