Intro. Lyrics to song
"Casper, the friendly ghost
The friendliest ghost you know!
The grownups might look at him with fright,
But the children all love him so.
He always says hello
And he’s really glad to meet ya’
Wherever he may go,
He’s kind to every living creature.
Grownups don’t understand,
Why children love him the most,
But kids all know that he loves them so,
Casper the friendly ghost!"
Source: www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/casporig.htm
"The reason I like Casper is because he’s always your friend," notes ten-year-old newcomer Brendon Ryan Barrett, who plays Chris Carson. "He never hurts anybody. He doesn’t scare you And he never really gets mad. He’s the best friend anybody could ever have."
Source: www.foxhome.com/casper2/index_frames.html
It all started with a lovable character. Casper was created in the late 1940s by Joe Oriole. Oriole came up with the idea of a "friendly" ghost and together with Sy Reit wrote a children’s book featuring the character.
They both believed in the concept of an amiable ghost and submitted their unpublished book to Famous Studios, a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. In 1945, Paramount released the first Casper cartoon, The Friendly Ghost. Though the initial audience response was tepid, Paramount revived Casper for a 1948 cartoon, There’s Good Boos Tonight, and a 1949 cartoon, A Haunting we will go. The ghost segued to his first comic book in 1949, when Jubilee published Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Casper the friendly Ghost Synopsis from ABC website
A friendly ghost who tried to help people rather than scare them, Casper starred in a series of theatrical shorts in the 1940’s. Casper became a mainstay of ABC’s Saturday morning schedule throughout the 1960’s.
Original Broadcast 10/5/63 To 12/27/69
Studio Paramount
Network ABC
Type animated
Characters Casper, Wendy, Lil’ Hot Stuff, Ghostly Trio, Night
Recently Casper, the amiable apparition has haunted the silver screen through the VCR & TV.
Two years and 28 trillion bytes (equal to about 19 million floppy discs) later, Casper not only looks authentic, but has subtle facial expressions and body language. The congenial ghost is not simply lifelike, explained Muren, but can be most accurately described as "the first digital performer ever. Casper talks, he shows emotion, he has the full range of motion you’d expect of a ’real’ ghost. Five shots in, you’ll forget you’re seeing a special effect."
Here’s a brief synopsis:
A sweet, lonely ghost befriends a motherless girl. He models the ultimate in selflessness -- the willingness to give his life (or rather, his return to life) -- for someone he loves. What could be wrong with someone so good?
Quote
"What’s wrong with Casper? Plenty. Casper may be a computer-generated wonder who tugs at heartstrings and draws sell-out crowds, but he’s still a ghost--a supernatural being who is not one of God’s angels. Since the dead have no power to participate in human activities, the Bible leaves no option other than to call him a demon--and there are no good demons."
Source Berit Kjos www.crossroad.to/text/articles/cmtfg97.html
How friendly is Casper? He promises to be our friend. But can we really trust the friendly phantom? What does the Bible have to say about friendly ghosts?
The Beginning Genesis 3
It started in a haunted place. A place where an evil spirit made his habitation. It has taken a most beautiful form. Within the confines of this wooden ancient forbidden place. But the phantom we see here reveals the modus operandi of all ghosts, and specters.
Like in the Casper Movie, advice was given to an inquiring mind. There was the kindred spirit – the understanding, the looking out for the betterment of the “fleshie” – human.
Yet even in this most perfect of all places, the phantom reveals himself. This is the Garden. Eden. Paradise. Perfection. Yet haunted. By the evil one.
Thus we see the start of how the Serpent works – through smoke & mirrors. Facades, shades of truth. Thus God draws the boundary for His OT people to stay away, stay far way from the haunts of even the friendliest of ghosts.
Later in America, at the rebirth of modern Spiritualism in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, people have been fascinated with the idea of contact with the dead. Early experiments were of course relatively low-tech (i.e. through channeling, rapping on tables, or the use of ouija boards). Inventor Thomas Edison predicted however that the spirit world would strive to keep up with the times, and that they might avail themselves of more technological means to make contact with the living in the future.
Question - Who is Casper?
Answer - the soul of a good person who died
In the movie, Kat finds a kindred soul in the lonely spirit Casper, because she also knows how hard it can be to make friends.
You’re being too serious! "But," you may argue, "this is just fantasy! Poor Casper is only make-believe. Don’t take him so seriously. Most children know the difference between fact and fantasy. Casper can’t hurt them!”
Yes he can. Fantasies like this help form a child’s world view--their mental frame of reference for all they think and learn. Children may know the difference between truth and myths in their minds, but when they identify with the movie’s occult personalities, their
feelings about spiritual realities will follow those expressed in the movie. Later, objective information can be explained away, but images and feelings often defy rational arguments.
Produced by Universal Studios, this movie is full of occult impressions that stretch a child’s world view to include more pluralistic and universal beliefs. All fit into the world’s pagan religions. All are common themes in today’s politically correct textbooks as well as movies.
Casper the Friendly Ghost
· Offers friendship
· Selfless
· Always with you
· Looks out for you
· Wants what’s best for you
· Kind
But is this really what is behind the slick Hollywood production? If we were to pull back the faith curtain, what would we see? What’s really going on here?
Does the Bible have anything to say about relating to friendly ghosts? Does this remind you of another story?
Let’s see & compare Casper with another “ghost” who isn’t as friendly.
Read 1 Samuel 28:5-20
Let’s look at this encounter with the living impaired spirit to see if we can see what’s really going on in the spirit realm.
The Spirit impersonating Samuel
· Rude. Quite bothered. Why are you bothering me? Vs 15 Not the friendly poltergeist like Casper
· Wants to destroy King Saul – What kind of friend is this? Sounds more like an arch villain or foe!
· Not kind
· Stabs King Saul with the wrongs of the past
God forgives & forgets, Satan & his demons want you to review your wrongs & remind you of them. God wants to restore us as we repent. Both want to give us R & R. Satan’s R & R is Reherse & Remember. Christ’s R & R is Repent and Restore.
· Pushes King Saul to a suicidal despair
COMPARE The two Ghosts
Casper the Friendly Ghost
· Offers friendship
· Selfless
· Always with you
· Looks out for you
· Wants what’s best for you
· Kind
Are there some lessons we can learn from this account? Can our friendly phantom Casper teach us something about the great cosmic battle going on in our lives & the planet?
LESSON #1
Review State of the Dead
1. Ingredients of a human
· Dirt + spark = Live Human
· Live Human – spark = dirt
· Platonic thought to divide humans into 2 beings
1. Spirit is good, which is divine, or another being.
2. Body is evil, doesn’t matter what you do with the shell.
Job 27:3 KJV All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils;
Illustration: The Hebrew word for soul is ruach – or breath. So on a brisk winter morning you can see your breath – you can see your “spirit.”
2. Death is Nap Time
· No haunting
· No heavenly hovering
Job 14:21 If his sons are honored, he does not know it; if they are brought low, he does not see it.
· No burning in hell right now
· No half way haunted houses of limbo or purgatory
· Just waiting, sleeping
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10
5 For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
and even the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Their love, their hate
and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
in anything that happens under the sun.
10 Whatever your hand finds to do,
do it with all your might, for in the grave,
where you are going, there is neither working
nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom."
LESSON #2
Review Cosmic Battle
the Great Controversy between Christ & Satan
1. Satan – father of lies John 8:44
2. Satan – attacks human kids to hurt our heaven Parent
3. Only 2 sides
4. Jesus – Only source of Life: no floaties or Lazarus machines
5. Battle field of my life – your life: our planet
Today many are listening again to the Oldest Lie in the Book – “You won’t really die.” Been There. Done that. Heard that. No need to go back.
Now Satan has revised it like a good environmentalist. We’ll just recycle you through reincarnation, so you can come back in a different form.
Genesis 3:1- 5
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, `You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?" 2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, `You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ "
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
Ingredients of Casper
· Intelligent supernatural being
· Ephesians 6:12
· For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
· Created being – a fallen angel
· Out to get you & hurt you & destroy you
See Job’s story
· Uses disguises
Matthew 4
Christ was tempted by this “angel of light” – Satan in the costume of a good angel.
2 Corinthians 11:14
And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
Revelation 16:14
They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.
1 Timothy 4:1
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
2 Peter 2:1, 2
1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
2 Thessalonians 2:9-12
9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10 and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
Revelation 21:8, NIV. "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
LESSON #3
Communication with the Dead – A Common Haunted Ground
Question: What common beliefs do the following have?
· An Ancient Canaanite in the OT time
· The Egyptian boy king, King Tut
· An Amazon witch doctor
· The rock star turned-psychic Info-mercial deva Deon Warwick
Answer: Communion with the dead.
Even some within the Christian faith community have unknowingly accepted this line. This leads to idolatry – for often the spirit’s word is of more value than Scripture.
Isaiah 8:19, 20
When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.
REVIEW 3 Lessons
Lesson #1 Humans are made of God’s breath, the spark of life and dirt. Death is a dreamless sleep, not happily haunting.
Lesson #2
The Grand War between Christ & Satan
Satan uses tricks, lies. But for what purpose? To destroy! Christ is the source of life & truth WHY? To save! Casper & Company represent fallen enemy angels.
Lesson #3
Foundation for Satan’s slight of hand is the belief that we can commune with the deceased.
Commune with the living God!
CONCLUSION & APPEAL
So how friendly is Casper?
· The “innocent” Casper isn’t as friendly as we thought.
· Don’t be fooled by the special effects that Satan uses. He wants us to fall for his lies.
· God’s word, the Bible, is the only thing that is sure. We can base our faith & lives on the solid Rock of God’s Word, rather than the smoke & shadows that the evil one offers.
· Christ wants to be our friend. He has promised never to leave us.
