By Michael W. Stevenson,
Pastor General
EACH year, people dress their children up as witches, goblins, ghosts, vampires, and all sorts of “scary” things and send them off door-to-door or to parties to gather candy and other food items and then tell them that it is all “harmless fun.” Yet, is there anything even actually harmless about this one day of the year? Is it truly a day in which we can partake in and not be getting involved in the “occult”?
It is high time that we again look at the issue on Halloween. After all, throughout the history of the Church of God, we have taken a thorough and hard look at this pagan holiday among others. Now it is again time that we look at the truth behind this holiday and see what God’s Word—the Holy Bible—really say in regards to it.
You just might be shocked to learn that there is nothing harmless about this holiday at all and that in fact, it is a pure EVIL day of the year—evil being that the Creator forbids us to be involved in such non-sense!
While on the outside, it may look like a lot of fun and may seem very harmless, all these things associated with Halloween, do you ever find yourself wanting to turn for the hours when it is over? If you do not, you may want to when you read this article?
On the outside, Halloween might appear to be so harmless and seem like just a time for the children to have fun, and even the adults at that with haunted houses and so-forth; but you are going to see that it is not acceptable to God for children to go and threaten to do vandalism if they don’t get their candy and for adults or anyone for that matter to evil dabble in going and associating in any manner with the “dead”.
What happens if your child goes to a house and the people there do not have what they want or doesn’t come to the door? Is it permitted to go and knock over their flowers, toilet paper trees, spray paint the car, throw eggs at the house or any number of other things that they so choose?
Isn’t it just exactly time that you knew the very truth regarding this one day of the year that might seem harmless?
For the most part, those in the clergy have not taken a stand against it; in fact, they seem to welcome it with having at their churches, parties and inviting the neighborhood out to their parties. While some might speak out against Halloween as you read in the newspaper, there are, for the most part those who welcome it whole heartedly!
God is now giving us a wake up call and calling to us to wake up and REPENT! He is urging us to NOT observe such notions and such foolishness. “…How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is your God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”—1 Kings 2:21 NIV What then will it take for us to wake up and take a stand for the TRUE GOD and reject these false ways of the pagans? What will it take for us to learn that many of these “traditions” are purely anchored in a way to lead us off track and take us from God?
How Did Halloween Start in the First Place?
So, just where is it that we got Halloween from and why is it so commonly observed among so many people?
We read that: “American celebrations rests upon Scottish and Irish folk customs which can be traced in direct line from pre-Christian times. Although Halloween has become a night of rollicking fun, superstitious spells, and eerie games that people take only half serious, its beginnings were quite otherwise. The earliest Halloween celebrations were held by the Druids in honor of Samhain, Lord of the Dead, whose festival fell on November 1.”—Halloween Through Twenty Centuries by Ralph Linton, p. 4.
Further, the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12 tells us that “It was a Druidic belief that on the eve of this festival, Saman, lord of death, called together the wicked souls that within the past 12 months had been condemned to inhabit the bodies of animals…”—pp. 847-858
In the Yearbook of English Festivals by Dorothy Gladys Spicer, we find that “All Hallows’ Eve or All Hallow E’en, with its tradition of witches, ghosts, hobgoblins and spirits, its games and incantations, still is a gay time for pranks and parties in many North country homes. Fun-loving Americans have borrowed from their British ancestors many Hallow E’en games such as apple-bobbing, nut roasting and tossing of apple parings. Transplanted to the New World soil, the old practices have become revitalized, and currently are observed with more enthusiasm than in the country of their birth.
“To ancient Druids, the end of October commemorated the festival of the waning year, when the sun began his downward course and ripened grain was garnered from the fields.” “Samhain, or ‘Summer’s End,’ as this feast to the dying sun was called, was celebrated with human sacrifice, augury and prayers; for at this season spirits walked, and evil had power over souls of men.
“Not until the fourth century did the pagan vigil for the god of light give way to All Hallows, the mass for Christian saints; and not until the tenth, did the Druids’ death feast become All Souls’ the day of prayer for souls that had entered rest. Cakes for the dead were substituted for human sacrifice, fortune-telling for heathen augury, lighted candles for the old Baal fires.”
Then we further read that “On this occasion, it was believed that a gathering of supernatural forces occurred as during no other period of the year. The eve and day of Samhain were characterized as a time when the barriers between the human and supernatural worlds were broken. Otherworldly entities, such as the souls of the dead, were able to visit earthly inhabitants, and humans could take the opportunity to penetrate the domains of the gods and supernatural creatures.
“Fiery tributes and sacrifices of animals, crops, and possibly human beings were made to appease supernatural powers who controlled the fertility of the land…Samhain acknowledge the entire spectrum of nonhuman forces that roamed the earth during the period”—Encyclopedia of Religion, 1987pp. 176-177, “Halloween”.
Halloween, plainly put, is a day that is devoted to the appeasing of demonic spirits and the dark side of the spirit—something that as Christians, we are not to have any part in.
The Apostle Paul told us to “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.”—Ephesians 5:11 NIV
Unfortunately, Halloween came to modern religion through that of the Roman Catholic Church, which assigned a day of the year to each saint. When it reached the point that they had more than 365 saints, they then combined them all together on November 1 and named it “All Saints Day” or “All Hallows Day”—the night before being “All Hallows Eve” which is contracted to the name of Hallowe’en or Halloween.
The Bible Against Halloween
You cannot find anywhere in the Bible any type of support for Halloween or any pagan holiday, occult practice or any thing of the like. God indeed warns us that we are to have nothing to do with such foolish notions and traditions (Leviticus 19:31; Deut. 18:10-12). They keep us from knowing the truths of God.
God does not take Halloween lightly as he plainly tells us to not learn the way of the heathens (Jeremiah 10:2) and to remember that we ought to take heed as so that we are not ensnared to follow them, especially after that they who do follow them are destroyed and that we do not inquire after their false gods also (Deut. 12:30).
God will not always remain so patient with those who are insisting on celebrating these harmful and very superstitious customs that surround Halloween. God is not slow in doing what he has promised and he will eventually do what he has promised (2 Peter 3:9-12). Thus, we better wake up and we better see the truth that is in these false and very harmful pagan ways.
Just Who Is The One Behind Halloween?
When it comes right down to it, the author of sin and death is Satan the devil, and it is he who is behind the scenes of pagan customs such as Halloween. Jesus had said that Satan is a liar and the father of all lies (John 8:44). God is the God of the living and not of the dead (Matthew 22:31-32). Thus, he is the God of not only TRUE Christians who are alive today, but because of the awesome hope that we have in the coming resurrection of the faithful that have died (1 Corinthians 15); he is also the God of them when they come back to life. So yes, the resurrection is certain that to God, it is looked on as an accomplished fact (Romans 4:17).
Satan, however, is the “lord of the dead”. Hebrews 2:14 tells us of Christ that “only by dying could he break the power of the Devil, who had the power of death”—NLT
Satan therefore is the lord of the dead in that he does truly lead people through his lies and his influence into the way of death and, as the next verse shows to people (Hebrews 2:15), puts them in bondage to the very fear of dying.
Satan has made Halloween look great on ignorant people and well-meaning Christians in a subtle, yet very deceitful way, bringing it to people through the Catholic Church with a “Christian” mask that hides it very demonic origins.
Any Chance to Make Halloween Harmless
When it comes to Halloween—or any other holiday for that matter—you need to ask, “Did God make man in His image, or did He intend to allow man to reinvent God in man’s image?”
The religious excuse for perpetuating Halloween may very well be that church leaders long ago made it holy for all the saints who had no day assigned to them. But, we need truly face the truth here that people who do observe it doesn’t care about religious notions. All they care about is the enjoyment to go with the flow.
Halloween is one of the very many human traditions that blind us from biblical teachings and that keep us in the dark from God’s truth that can truly set us free (John 8:32). Therefore, as we have seen, this holiday is not harmless at all and carries all the things in it that God hates. God warns us that we are to avoid such stuff and not dabble in it, he hates for us to dabble in the spirit world of Satan and his demons. Yes, God does have compassion on them who are poor and of a contrite spirit and trembling at His Word (Isaiah 66:2)! Therefore, let us take heed and not keep those things which are not appropriate for the Christian.
When we do what God says, we then are making things right and we are keeping ourselves free from all the evil and all the other things which come in against us if we do not obey God.
Therefore, let us be very cautious about what we do and we will see the blessings within our own lives. PTM