What About Halloween?

[0:00] What are we to make of Halloween? Is it just an innocent, harmless fun thing or something more sinister? A day to carve pumpkins, wear scary costumes and go trick or treating?

[0:15] ! What is actually behind it all? Where does Halloween come from? I'm Pastor Andrew Craig and I'd like to take a look from a Christian perspective and like to pose the question to you, is it something that God would want us to be involved in?

[0:31] So where does Halloween come from? Clearly it has strong occult witchcraft roots. Halloween began around the 8th century as a follow on from the sinister ancient Druid festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to supposedly ward off the ghosts of the night of October the 31st.

[0:58] And this worldly pagan holiday celebrates death, fear, darkness, witches and demons. For the Bible believer we know that God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

[1:18] Instead of being spooked by fear and such other kinds of spirits, the Bible shows us how you can know God and His saving power. And love and peace in a personal way.

[1:32] The ancient Druids worshipped many gods and they called November 1st the day of death. In the northern hemisphere it was the beginning of winter.

[1:44] And they believed that their God, their sun God was losing strength and that Samhain, the Lord of Death supposed, was overpowering the sun God. And the Druids held that the Lord of the dead gathered all the souls of the wicked people who had died during the year and who had been condemned to enter the bodies of animals.

[2:03] And the Druids thought that souls of the dead would visit the living. So it was a time of superstitious fear. The Bible, in contrast to such a spirit of fear, shows how we can know God as our own Father.

[2:17] It tells us how we have received, not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption whereby we can cry, Abba, Father. It's that very personal calling of God as our Father.

[2:31] And when we are born again, we can actually know God personally. And He sets us free from all such worldly things. The Bible says, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

[2:43] If any men love the world, the love of the Father is not in Him. And the Bible also tells us to learn not the way of the heathen and such things. It's not of God.

[2:54] And so we would want to steer clear of it. Halloween was really a pagan festival that sprang out of the false Roman Catholic Church who tried to Christianize this evil festival.

[3:08] And in the 800s, they named November the first All Saints Day and celebrated All Hallow Mass. And the day before became Halloween. In other words, All Hallows Eve or Holy Evening.

[3:21] And so such a false church mixture is not of God. The Bible says clearly that we shouldn't kind of have it such that we are drinking the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils, that we have to make a decision one way or the other.

[3:35] Halloween certainly has a religious aspect, but it is absolutely not Christian. On this day, the Satanic Church holds black masses to honor Satan.

[3:48] It's their High Holy Day or unholy day, if you like. They make animal and even human sacrifices as witches take oaths of obedience to Satan and sign contracts with him in blood and desecrate Christian objects.

[4:03] Of course, we know Satan is the power that is behind all false religion, witchcraft, idolatry and the occult. And we ought to take heed that we not go along with that.

[4:17] In the Bible, it says that we ought to be sober, be vigilant, on the lookout, because it says, Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour.

[4:29] And it tells us not to have any fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather to reprove them. It tells us in the Bible how the Lord Jesus himself is the light of the world.

[4:41] And he says, He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. In contrast, we know that Halloween is filled with darkness, with all sorts of pagan customs and symbols of death and such.

[4:54] On Halloween, the Druids would celebrate gruesome worship ceremonies with animals and even humans burned to death. And they thought that this would appease the cruel God, Sarwin, and keep evil spirits from harming them.

[5:07] That's what's behind all of this, behind even the idea of the so-called harmless trick or treating. The Druids would demand human sacrifices in order to please their false God, Sarwin.

[5:19] And so the Druid priests would go from castle to castle and demanded women to sacrifice them. They would go from house to house asking for fatted calves and black sheep and human beings.

[5:32] The people who gave were promised prosperity, but those who refused to give were threatened and cursed. These women were abused. They were taken to sacrificial altars and killed at places like Stonehenge in England and many other places.

[5:52] If the sacrifice was willingly given, the Druids left a hollow good like a turnip or a pumpkin, as it became more common, outside of the castle walls and it was filled with burning human fat.

[6:05] And this burning fat was supposed to protect the castle from demonic attack. If the Druids were refused the sacrifice, they drew a hexagram on the door or wall of the castle and left. Before dawn, someone in the castle would be found dead from fear.

[6:20] So when children go door to door nowadays with the trick or treat, they're actually mimicking all of this ritualised murder of days gone by. And people give these children fruits or treats, much like the Druids were given human sacrifices.

[6:37] If the children are refused to treat, they are allowed to play a little trick on the household. In contrast to all of that, the Bible says we should actually hate what is evil and have nothing to do with it.

[6:53] It tells us in the Bible, abhor or hate that which is evil and cleave to or cling to that which is good. And that we ought to keep unspotted from the world.

[7:05] Have not a bar of it. At Halloween, people make much of the Jack-o'-lanterns, the hollowed out pumpkins. And really, again, this all stems from that heathen history.

[7:18] The idea of a candlelit pumpkin or even a skull was something that was a signal to mark those farms and homes that supported the Druids' false religion during this terror campaign that was Halloween.

[7:32] And the Druid priests would carry out actual beheadings of their victims. And so likely the original Jack-o'-lantern was a human head. And this lighted pumpkin face is really an ancient symbol of a damned soul and represents a soul trapped in purgatory.

[7:49] Another false idea. It's not of God. Even the orange and black colours of Halloween have a wicked origin. At the Druid festival of death, huge bonfires were used for offering human and animal sacrifices.

[8:03] So the colours of the night were orange flames blowing in the dark. In contrast to all this false kind of religion, the Bible calls us to keep well clear of such ideas.

[8:15] Of all of that. It says, Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil. Really, it's just such a complete opposite. True Bible faith in God.

[8:26] We're told to follow not that which is evil, but rather that which is good. Another big aspect of Halloween that we have today is how people dress up in all kinds of scary costumes such as dressing as witches and as ghosts.

[8:43] We know the Bible shows us that witches are clearly an abomination to God. They're worshippers of Satan. Why would anyone want to dress up a child like something that God hates?

[8:56] Why would a Christian want to decorate their homes with skulls and skeletons and all such wickedness? What does the Bible say?

[9:08] What does the Bible say? That's what ought to guide our decisions. It says, Abstain from all appearance of evil. In other words, don't touch it. Don't go anywhere near it. Does God want you to dress your child up like an evil spirit, a witch, a wizard, a monster?

[9:25] Rather, the Bible calls us to keep right away from things such as that. It says, Don't give place to the devil. Don't give him an inch. Don't give him any place.

[9:36] The Druids would wear scary costumes to supposedly scare away evil spirits. What the world thinks of as ghosts are not really the spirits of dead people, but rather evil spirits, which we very clearly warned about in the Bible.

[9:52] It's a clear biblical principle that we should keep right away from all such things as witchcraft, magic and the occult. The Bible urges us and warns us much of such things.

[10:04] Let us cast off the works of darkness, rather put on the armor of life. And friends, be not overcome of evil, but rather overcome evil with good.

[10:15] You can know the Savior for yourself personally as your own Lord and Savior. I would urge you to take that trust in him to find that peace of God that is made possible because Jesus, our Lord died on the cross for our sins.

[10:30] He rose again from the dead. We can know him and confess him as our Lord and receive his gift of salvation by simple faith and trust in him. And I would urge you to that, to put your trust in the Lord today.

[10:43] May God bless you.