It's here. Halloween - one of the major holidays that kids really look forward to. It's all about candy, candy, and …well …candy. As you get older, it becomes about candy and cool costumes. By the time you're an adult, it's all about candy, parties, and cool costumes.
Fun? Definitely! Harmless? Honestly, in my opinion - I don't think so. I love fun, but not all fun is innocent. A lot of people have fun drinking or doing drugs, but that is definitely not harmless fun. As a matter of fact, according to Harry Smith in the History Channel's "The Haunted History of Halloween" program, Halloween is "s time to do things we wouldn't dream of doing any other time of the year."
My basic problem with Halloween is that there is nothing good to be found in it. As a matter of fact, it is by definition anti-good and anti-God. It's a weak argument to talk about the roots of Halloween as why we shouldn't celebrate it because if you're gonna go that route, than we shouldn't celebrate Christ-mas either since that was originally a pagan holiday. What matters much more is what Halloween is about today – celebrating death, evil, terror, and everything that God stands against. It's about celebrating everything God sent Jesus Christ to conquer.
There would be no Easter without the story of Christ's death and resurrection. There would be no Christmas without the birth of Christ. There would be no Thanksgiving without the pilgrims being thankful to God for how He had blessed them. Halloween, though? There's certainly no Godliness in Halloween, but I've looked long and hard and I can't even find any good in it. Because of the historical roots and the heritage of Halloween and more importantly, because of what it is today both to Satanists and non-Satanists alike, I just can't call Halloween innocent, harmless fun.
The roots of Halloween reach back to the Celtic Paganism of the 300's B.C. The Celts were a people led by a cult with very strange, demonic practices, called the Druids. The most important day for the Druids was Samhaim (or Saman), October 31st. It was a time when leaves would fall and decay – appropriate timing to worship the "Lord of the Dead." This was the night when the barrier between the spirit and the human world was thinnest, allowing the spirits to enter our world and do as they wished.
If they didn't like the food or shelter that was given them, they would cast spells and wreak havoc on earth, tormenting humans and animals. Thus the "harmless" practice of "trick or treat" began, rooted in demonic evil.
To try to fool the spirits and not have tricks played on them, people would dress up as witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and ghouls; thus out tradition of Halloween costumes – another "harmless" tradition rooted in demonic evil.
The horrible high point of this day was when animal and human sacrifices would take place – as they do even today – as a form of worship to the Lord of the Dead, Samhaim. The Druid would stab their victims and try to tell the future by the way they shook as they died and by how their blood flowed. The remains were placed in a large pile and burned up in a "bone fire" – and so began the traditional Halloween bon fire.
Ghosts, witches, broomsticks, black cats, bobbing for apples, jack o lanterns, skulls …all the things associated with Halloween have their roots and heritage in evil, death, and destruction. But we don't think of what they mean; we think of them as simply harmless fun for the kids. I mean, those roots are not part of most people's Halloween celebrations today.
But even today, this day is still celebrated as the holiest day in the Satanic calendar, and all sorts of terrible animal and even human sacrifices take place.
It's interesting to me that Halloween is seen by so many, even many Christians, as something good when it is inherently and totally bad. The Bible is so true when it says that Satan pretends to be good and makes bad things seem to be good (see 2 Corinthians 11:14). For many people, Satan has succeeded in covering up the true meaning of Halloween just as he has Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter.
As Christ followers, as Christians, we have a clear command from God in 2 Corinthians 6:17 and 1 Thessalonians 5:22 to come out of ungodly things and be separate, not even giving the appearance of being associated with what is evil. In my opinion, believers have a command from God to not associate with anything ungodly, such as the wicked Halloween holiday.
Like I said, there's no good in Halloween. That alone should be enough for us to have nothing to do with it. Personally though, if you choose to celebrate Halloween by dressing up or going trick or treating or to a Halloween party – that's your prerogative. And I will still love you, I will still accept you, I will still be for you, and I will no judge you or think of you as less of a person or less of a Christian or anything like that.
But if you've read this, you can't say you didn't know the truth about Halloween – all you can say is that you chose a night of "harmless fun" over obedience to God's Word. If that seems legalistic of judgmental, well I'm sorry. I don't mean to come across that way – but in John 10:10, Jesus said that He came to give us life. All throughout the Bible we see that God is a good God who loves us, and that His love gives us no reason to fear. God also calls us to stay separate from the appearance of evil.
Because of that, I simply cannot call something "good" that is inherently anti-God. All I can do on this day is remember that according to Psalm 118:24, even this evil, wicked day is the day the Lord has made, so I will rejoice and be glad in it. And someway, somehow, I'll follow Jesus' lead and try to redeem it.
Most of all, today I thank God for His grace and that He still loves and accepts anyone regardless of what they do. I thank God that this day is also the anniversary of when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door at Wittenberg and started the chain of events that led to the Protestant Reformation, where we Christians stood firm in holding that God is a God of grace.
So today, I celebrate that …and I thank God that this Halloween season is almost over for another year! =)
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