Sermon Brief
Date Written: October 16, 2008
Date Preached: October 16, 2008
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Series: Seasonal Sermon
Sermon Title: Should the Believer celebrate Halloween?
Sermon Text: Ephesians 6:12
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Introduction:
In 12 days, we will all be subjected to an annual ritual that personally, I find offensive and disturbing, but many of you sitting here may find it to be a harmless and fun part of life. I am speaking about Halloween.
What is Halloween? Most of us know it as a night where we all go and get candy OR we dress up in costumes and go to parties. In America it is known as an annual holiday and celebration.
But you have to ask yourself, what are we actually celebrating on this holiday? How did this holiday come to be? Is this holiday we celebrate a form of demon worship, or is Halloween just some harmless fun and games that people play every year?
Let’s think about it for a moment. Halloween is BIG business! The selling of candy, costumes and other related items makes this holiday 2nd only to Christmas in the amount of money spent by Americans! WOW! But, again what are we celebrating, what is the history of Halloween?
Well what we know as Halloween is really a mixing of several traditions. First of all, some 2000 yrs ago, a people called the Celts (Kelts) lived in Great Britain. They had an intellectual class known as the Druids, who served as priests, judges, lawmakers, and scientists.
These Druids had an elaborate pagan religious festival called the Fire Festival or Samhain (pronounced sow-en) that marked the Celtic New Year.
The Druids believed that during ‘sow-en’ the barrier between the natural and supernatural world was removed, and dead were able to move freely among the living. The Druids held this celebration as the most solemn and important night in the Celtic year.
When Christianity reached Great Britain, Pope Gregory 4th in 835AD attempted to “Christianize” this festival. He moved the "Feast of All Saints" from the spring to November 1st to replace the pagan festival.
The night before, which was supposed to feature a sacred vigil in church, became known as "All Hallow’s Eve," or Halloween because the old customs of the Celts and Druids were hard to get rid of. The church denounced them as pagan and ungodly and this is how “All Hallow’s Eve” or Halloween became known as a pagan holiday.
Now the costumes and going door-to-door comes from another tradition that came later in Europe! On “All Hallow’s Eve” masked players/actors would go from house-to-house, putting on a simple drama or musical performance in return for food and drink. This began with a Christian theme.
But, the "trick-or-treat" custom we know today is totally American! Back in the 1800’s, when immigrants brought their Halloween traditions to America, the night became an occasion for pranks and mischief.
People would go out at night, soaping windows, overturning outhouses, and pulling gates from their hinges. People jokingly attributed these acts of mischief to the supernatural, however by 1920 the joke wasn’t funny anymore. The damage being done to the neighborhoods was no longer a joke and it was on the rise.
In an attempt to counteract this Halloween night vandalism, community clubs like the Boy Scouts began to organize alternatives for the mischief makers, alternatives that were supposed to be safe and fun.
Children were encouraged to go door-to-door in their neighborhood and receive treats from homeowners and merchants. They believed this family atmosphere would keep the troublemakers away. By the 1930’s this custom had spread nationwide, and you would hear, "Trick or treat!" echoing thru neighborhood streets on Halloween night.
So when we look at what we have as Halloween today, it came about as a combination of:
The pagan rituals of the Druids of ancient Ireland…
The Christianization of pagan events by the Pope…
And finally by the civic elements of urban America, clubs like the Boy Scouts wanting to stop vandalism!
These elements came together to form what we now know as Halloween. Now I will admit that in my youth I thought of Halloween as fun and getting candy.
But, in recent years during the Halloween holiday there has been a renewed interest and sharp rise in pagan rituals and celebrations! Why? Well, it is our culture!
Popular TV shows such as "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" make witchcraft seem fun and acceptable. We find shows on TV now that try to normalize pagan and evil themes that we KNOW are wrong!
Shows where vampires have day jobs as detectives, store clerks reap souls for the Devil, reporters time-travel to get their stories straight, cheerleaders walk through fire and people of all kinds talk to dead people.
I have even heard that reality television is getting swept away by this current craze about the occult as I have heard that NBC is scheduled to unveil a show named “Phenomenon.”
This show is supposed to be an “American Idol”-ish type competition for amateur illusionists and mentalists, with Uri Geller, a self professed psychic and professional street illusionist Chris Angel as judges.
The fact of the matter is that much of our culture today is steeped in the occult and it downplays the dangers of the occult. Today, for the most part Halloween is viewed as a harmless ritual of going from house to house seeking candy for children.
Sadly this extends to those of us in the church as well! If you speak to almost any CHRISTIAN about Halloween, many will say that they allow their children to participate because it is harmless fun! I have even heard a Christian mother tell me, if the atheist can take Christ out of Christmas, I can take Satan out of Halloween!
One part of our society portrays Halloween with the image of harmless fun, but there is a darker side. One cannot deny the fact that Halloween is strongly associated with the occult, occult practices and its preoccupation with the dead!
“Oh preacher, you are over-reacting! This is just harmless fun!” But, regardless of how you view what I am about to say, I am not here to be a killjoy for your fun or the fun of your children… but what is being practiced and celebrated on Halloween goes against everything we say that we stand FOR as Christians!!
The world tries to convince you that Satan is a joke…but we must understand that evil is real and he is real! Satan is NOT the cartoon character that many portray him as, you know with horns and a tail, but He IS real!
The Bible describes him as an Angel of Light… It also describes him as the father of lies, which means that Satan is a beautiful deception!
The most effective way Satan has influenced this world is to believe that he does NOT exist! This is THE main reason that the apostle Paul is emphasizing Eph 6:12 in our passage this morning that our battle is not one against one another, but against an evil and destructive force…
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
Paul understood that Satan is real; and we must realize the same. Satan has done a pretty good job of convincing most people that he does not exist or that he is this little imp who causes mischief and is a trouble maker of sorts. However, if people really understood who Satan is and what he was capable of… they would tremble and RUN to God!
Satan was the first created being to openly defy God. He and those angels who followed Him were cast out of heaven and started a way of life focused on self-centeredness and rejection of God’s authority.
Self centeredness was the birth of sin, which is nothing more than rebellion against God. Satan infiltrated Eden and tempted Adam and Eve and, sin entered into humanity. Scripture tells us "For the wages of sin is death..."
And that is what the occult is all about… self indulgence and pleasing one’s SELF. So I ask the question this morning…why should we as believers not celebrate Halloween? The first reason we should not celebrate Halloween is because…
Halloween glorifies Death…
Halloween glorifies death and the believer should NEVER glorify what God did not desire and what sin ultimately brought into the world!
A. God did not desire death for His creation, but God created Adam and Eve to commune with Him in a never-ending relationship.
It was Adam and Eve’s choice to disobey God that brought death into the world! This is plainly stated in Gen 2:16-17 [NKJV]
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Adam and Eve were human just like you and I, and when they were tempted by the serpent, they convinced themselves that they just had to have what God had forbidden from them. But what about you, have you ever thought you had to DO something or HAVE something just because you were told you couldn’t?
Let me illustrate just what I mean… did any of you notice the sign in the middle of the lobby this morning… you know the big one that said, “Do not touch!”…I want to ask, “How many of you went up to the sign and just HAD to touch it?” Hmmmm? How many… do you want to confess right now? [raise your hand… to see who will confess]
You see, Adam and Eve made a willful decision to do disobey God… it doesn’t matter who tempted them… they disobeyed a direct command from God and were held responsible for their choice!
God held Adam responsible for his sin and in Rom 5:12 (NKJV) Paul reveals the results of Adam’s disobedience… “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned…”
Adam brought death into the world. Death was not God’s intention for creation! But it was disobedience and sin that brought death into the world! So 1st we understand that death was not God’s plan!
B. 2nd, we need to understand that death is our enemy!
Death is our enemy because it destroys life, it takes life away! God on the other hand is the Creator and Author of life. In God’s original creation there was no sin or pain, disease or death, but humanity sinned and brought death into the world!
Scripture teaches us that death is our enemy. I Cor 15:26 [NKJV] tells us, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Christ subjected Himself to the greatest enemy of humanity, DEATH!
Scripture tells us that Death is not all powerful, but it has an end; death will cease to be; death will be stopped. One day we will be delivered once-and-for-all from death. Death will be swallowed up in victory.
Isaiah 25:8 [NKJV] tells us “He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; for the LORD has spoken…”
1 Cor. 15:54 [NKJV] “…So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
Death IS our enemy, but for now we must understand that this enemy was not God’s plan and one day… one glorious day…God is going to destroy death! Jesus has already conquered the effects and fear of death and in Him we no longer have to fear death… but one day God is going to eliminate death altogether.
Halloween celebrates and honors Death which is our enemy and not what God desired for humanity, but we are also NOT to celebrate Halloween because…
Halloween honors – Satan/Devil/Evil…
I believe we all can come to the agreement that the Halloween season is not set aside to honor and glorify God! In fact, we all know that Halloween is a season of honoring evil, death and the evil one – Satan himself!
Just look around during Halloween… you find Satan, witches, vampires, werewolves, zombies and demons are displayed proudly… people dress up as these characters and honor them by imitating them.
In Scripture we read that Satan and his minions are out to destroy believers. Satan hates God and seeks to destroy us because we are serving God and he seeks to hurt God by hurting us.
I Peter 5:8 [NKJV] tells us, “…Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour…”
Satan hates YOU, and hates God and is making war against God and anyone who serves God.
Satan has 2 reasons why he hates God…
First, Satan hates God’s power and authority! He rebelled against God and wanted to be worshiped like God. God stopped this rebellion in heaven by throwing Satan and his followers out of heaven! Satan desires our worship and he goes about this in three ways.
Satan openly opposes and attempts to disturb and destroy God’s work. He is a great discouragement to all believers and he does it thru a myriad of differing ways. Satan seeks power and satan desires to be worshiped as God, but another reason for Satan’s war against God is that…
Satan’s purpose is to hurt and cut the heart of God. Why? It is because God has judged and condemned Satan for rebelling against God. And because of that, Satan does all he can to get back at God. Now Satan knows he is not all powerful… he knows he is not able to overpower God… so the best way Satan can ‘put it to God’ is to turn the hearts and minds of God’s greatest creation, humanity, away from God!
Satan is bound for hell and it is his desire to lead ALL of creation into hell with him, and he wishes to sabotage any and all believers in their walk with Christ so that their witness fails to reach other people! Satan wants to lead everyone into a life of rebellion and sin and for all people to follow him in the way of evil.
The Apostle Paul understood Satan’s desire to destroy us, but knew that in Christ we were MORE than able to overcome Satan’s attacks: In Rom 8:36-37 he writes: 36 As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
We conquer Satan in Christ because Christ breaks Satan’s power through two very specific acts on His part!
First, Jesus overcame Satan while here on this world… We read about this in Matt 4 where Jesus never gave into the temptation of Satan. But not only that Jesus overcame Satan in this world by living a perfect life
2 Cor 5:21[NKJV] tells us, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him…”
Because Jesus overcame Satan in this life by resisting temptation and living a perfect life, when we come to Christ, we…thru His power… can overcome and resist Satan too!
The perfect life Jesus lived was important in overcoming Satan for 2 specific reasons:
First it showed others that Satan could be resisted, not on their own but thru a faith and trust in God. Jesus taught that thru God all things were possible… and that included resisting the prince of this world… the evil one himself!
The second very important thing His perfect life accomplished was that it prepared Him for His ultimate purpose for coming to this world. Jesus’ perfection prepared Him to be the perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world… the spotless Lamb of God!
So we can see that the 1st act Jesus did to break Satan’s grip on humanity was to live a perfect life, free from sin and resisting his temptations, but there is another reason!
The 2nd thing Jesus did to brake Satan’s grip was that He overcame and destroyed the power of death. Up to that point, Satan had ruled with an iron fist and had used the death he brought into this world to subjugate the people of this world.
Satan tried to use the weapon of death to put Jesus down… to win victory over Him, but Scripture reveals to us that Jesus was able to overcome both physical and spiritual death! Jesus raised from death on the 3rd day and was a witness to many before ascending into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father!
Now do you understand why Scripture tells us in 1 John 4:4 [NKJV] that “greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” and then again, in Rom 8:31 [NKJV] where Paul wrote, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”
Halloween glorifies death and it honors the enemies of God, but another reason believers should NOT partake in Halloween is that…
Halloween honors Sin …
The Halloween celebrations that glorify death and honor Satan are from a ritualistic form of worship called paganism. In paganism, the main focus is self-indulgence. Self-indulgence is the center of a sinful heart!
People wearing satanic and evil costumes and the excessive self indulgence does not bring honor to God, but lifts up the evil and selfish enemy of God and people whether you want to believe this or not…whether you want to accept this or not…this is sin!!
In 1 Cor 10:20 [NKJV] Paul teaches that, “…the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.”
The term Gentile here is used to refer to those OUTSIDE of Christ, to those who did not know or have a relationship with Jesus. They lived lives that honored demons and the father of all demons… and Paul did not want any believers to act in such a way that it reflected a relationship with Satan.
Do your activities point to a relationship with God…or one with Satan? When you participate in Halloween… Satan is glorified and honored! And
when we participate in such a manner… it is akin to idolatry.
When we fellowship with the enemy of God we are giving Him honor… we are lifting him up! Our battle is not with the people who celebrate Halloween, but with the one who is honored ON Halloween!
Eph 6:12 [NKJV] “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”
It helps us to understand that the forces we are dealing and fighting with come from the supernatural realm. Satan is real and he wants to destroy you and hurt God. Are you fighting against him or are you honoring him by partaking in activities that honor and lift him up?
So often we think that the devil comes to us all scary and evil, but that is not how he is going to approach us. He approaches us with beauty and fun and self enjoyment. Satan comes to us and offers us things that we say in our heart, “What could it hurt… it is so innocent!”
Think about Eve, what is a piece of fruit? It’s just an apple…what could it hurt? Satan does not want us to see his true form or the consequences of our sin, so he comes to us in a form that is pleasing to our eyes...
2 Cor. 11:14-15 [NKJV] “14 And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works...”
Satan is out to hurt and destroy God... Satan does this by turning men away from the Lord Jesus Christ, by enticing men to give their lives to the things and gods of this world. He does this by deceiving them… by making what is horrible seem decent… by making evil look righteous and good!
When you become consumed with anything that is OF this world! You are fulfilling the will of Satan! If you exalt anything above God and honor anything other than God, you are honoring Satan and that is sin!
Remember what that Scripture said a few moments ago? When people make sacrifices (whether animals or self) to something other than God, they are sacrificing to devils…to the enemies of God!
When we substitute anything else in our worship… when we replace God, it is idolatry! Idolatry breaks the commandment of God! We either worship God or we worship the enemies of God. It is impossible to truly worship God AND his enemies.
1 Cor 10:21 [NKJV] teaches us this very principle as it says, “…You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons…”
A person cannot be a guest of the Lord at His table and a guest at the table of idolatrous devils. We cannot allow the deception of Satan to turn us away from Him.
But this warning from Paul was not something new, in fact the nation of Israel had dealt with this from their beginning, in Deut 11:16 [NKJV] Moses wrote this warning to the people of Israel, “Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them,”
Isaiah wrote in Is 42:8 [NKJV], “I am the LORD: that is my name: my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images”
As Christians, our loyalty… our focus… our worship can only be directed in one way…TO GOD! When we begin to direct it in any other direction, we offer the enemy of God our honor! God is not going to stand for it! He will discipline believers who walk in this manner! We are to focus on Him!
If we are honoring the celebration of Halloween, we honor the things God hates and that brings dishonor to Him. Celebrating Halloween is like the believer spitting in the face of God!
Halloween glorifies death, Halloween honors Satan and the enemies of God, Halloween glorifies sin and sinful behavior, but the MAIN reason we should not celebrate Halloween is that…
Halloween is hated by God…
What I need you to understand today is that God does not hate fun NOR does God hate humanity, but God does hate man’s evil ways! In Prov 14:12 [NKJV] we read, “…There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death…” and we have learned that death comes directly from sin against God!
All sin is against God and God hates sin and sinful behavior. When we celebrate Halloween… we glorify death, we honor Satan, we glorify sinfulness and this dishonors and goes against God!
We are called to FOLLOW God, not battle against Him, and when we celebrate a holiday such as Halloween we are battling against what we tell others that we stand FOR. Where do you stand…for God or against Him? Halloween does not glorify OR honor God…where do you stand?
Conclusion
Humanity was God’s most noble and dignified creation, but humans have abused God’s love and purpose in creating him. Humanity has rebelled against God: we have rejected His love; we have gone against His purpose for creation; we have chosen to reject, ignore, neglect, and deny God, as our Creator and Savior!
Sin against God leads to death, and we all have sinned and are sentenced to death! However, the Bible tells us that there is hope! That is what the Good News is all about!
Scripture assures us that Jesus Christ can save you from the penalty of your sins, if you will come to Him and confess your sin and honor Him in your heart as Savior and Lord. I call on everyone here today to make the right choice today and choose to put sin aside and turn to Jesus.
As Bro. Parker comes, I call on believers who have drifted from their dedication and honor of God…come and confess your sin and be made whole again in God! I challenge you to honor God this Halloween and NOT celebrate Halloween, instead honor God in what you do!
I call on those who do not know Christ as Savior, to come and confess Him as Lord, allow Him to forgive you of the sin in your life, allow Him to forgive you for rebelling against Him all your life… allow Him to come into your life and cleanse you and make you part of His family!
Come as we begin to sing…
