This evening I’m going to be looking at a number of verses, but the last few times we’ve gotten together we’ve been looking at Babylon. And we’re coming up on Halloween, and a lot of people don’t understand the origins of Halloween, the significance of Halloween, and what Halloween really worships. As you look at America, we forget history, and we forget why things are the way they are, and we forget why we do often things that we do.
One of those is Halloween. Oftentimes people just think of it, well, it’s a fun time where people can get together, and kids can go around and collect candy and dress up, and it’s not that big a deal. Well, I want us to understand what should our position as Christians be on it, and what should we really do.
I want you to understand that the origin of Halloween really comes, and we’re going to see later where its real origins begin, because the belief system is in just about every culture. Modern-day Halloween has its origins amongst the Druids and the Celtics religions in Great Britain hundreds of years, or a long time ago, hundreds of years ago. And the Druids really worshipped Satan and witchcraft, and they were involved in all kinds of things occultic.
The Druids believed, and they had one of their gods that they worshipped was called Samhain. He was the lord of the dead. I want you to understand something.
Do we serve the lord of the dead, or the lord of the living? Halloween’s roots started with Samhain, the lord of the dead, being worshipped, and it was the belief of the Celtics that the end of the year and the beginning of the new year was October st and November st. On October st, they believed that all of those people that had died the year before, their souls were wandering around in Samhain, would allow them to come one last time for a night of revelry, and a night of doing what they wanted before their eternal destiny was determined on the next day, November st. And what they would do is, many beliefs and practices came because of this.
One is they believed that these spirits would go back to the places that they had come from, as far as like homes, villages, and they would seek to go there for comfort, or to experience one last time there before they were set off to eternity. And what the Celtics would do is they would put candles out, so that the spirits could find their way. And then also, a lot of times, the spirits would come and they would be manifesting themselves, because we know that they’re really demonic spirits, they’re not spirits of people.
And they would terrorize the people, and so one of the practices that they began to do was build bonfires on the eve of All Saints Day, the day that the people would go to their eternal destiny. And by building the bonfires, these spirits would be attracted to there instead of wanting to go back to the home, where there would just be little candles to draw them. Well, what should we believe about all this? Out of all this practice, there came sacrifices, there came a whole system where they would put cages where they put animals and they would burn them in the bonfires, and sometimes they would even give human sacrifices.
When the Roman Catholic Church came into Great Britain, they never missed an opportunity to incorporate paganism into the Catholic Church to draw the people into their belief system, which was not Christian at all. But as we saw on Sunday, a combination of Babylonianism with Christianity, which makes it just a lie. And the Roman Catholics said, well, if we’re going to be having these spirits going around on the first or the eve, we will call the first of November All Saints Days.
And so they developed a deal on the st of November where these spirits would be going into their eternal destiny. I just want us to look at some verses which talk about should we be involved with this stuff. And we’re going to get into a little bit more some of the practices of Halloween and I want you to see what they involve.
But let’s first turn with me to Leviticus chapter , verse . And in Leviticus chapter 19, verse 31,
Moses is writing, the Lord is writing through Moses to the nation of Israel. And he says the following, regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.
So we’re not to seek wizards, we’re not to seek familiar spirits, we’re not to be involved in the occult. But yet I want you to know that today, there are many Christians who see nothing wrong with this.
One of the big movie hits that came out a number of years ago was Harry Potter. And Harry Potter went to the school of wizardry in England and it was all about how Harry Potter learned to cast spells and it was wizards and it was familiar spirits and all this stuff. I remember when our youngest daughter was still at home, we went to a conference in Rochester and there was a speaker at the conference and someone asked him, what do you think of Harry Potter? He said, well, I see nothing wrong with Harry Potter. I think that it’s marvelous entertainment and it gives you, you know, it’s nothing that can really harm you. Well, I don’t know, according to this verse, I think that it’s very harmful.
You’ve got a whole generation of kids that grew up on Harry Potter. They grew up on other magical things. If you look at many of the cartoons that are there on Saturday morning, they have occultic themes and they have magical themes. Many of the toys that kids play with have occultic themes.
When our youngest daughter was fairly young, someone had given her this magic pony, this rainbow pony. And we had just bought the book that was talking about the toy box and the dangers of the toy box. And Berta had read the book and in there it talked about what’s in your children’s toy box? What is it influencing them to do? And what is it leading them into believing? And when she read that, she looked at this rainbow pony, which was really a rainbow unicorn, and everything about it had ties to the occult if you begin to look at what it stood for, not the Bible.
So we decided to throw away those toys and get rid of them. Later on, Berta was talking to a lady that she knew and she mentioned to her what she had read and why she had done that. And the lady just got irate with her. You’re saying you have to throw away the toys that I just bought for my daughter? And Berta told her, no, you don’t have to throw them away. But I’m just telling you what the Bible says and what I’m reading and what I’m discovering that these toys stand for. But there’s a lot of people like that that are Christians in the church and they don’t understand what they’re doing in opening themselves up to the demonic realm.
It’s really the Babylonian spirit that’s come into the church. It’s a spirit that’s driven by Satan and the demons of hell, not by the God of the Bible. Much more serious, and we can’t get much more serious than influencing our children, but when you have the adults of the church that don’t see anything wrong with, for example, yoga, and you’ve got books out there that talk about yoga and the church and yoga and a Christian, the whole concept of yoga is linking yourself with the demonic gods of the Hindu religion and allowing them to possess you.
And that’s why you have to empty your mind through saying a mantra which causes you to go to an altered state of consciousness and allows these spiritual entities to speak to you. Well, yoga is coming in as a common practice in the church. You can go to many churches today and the churches will actually hold yoga classes where they will teach the people how to do yoga.
Remember, Dave Hunt, a number of years ago made the statement, people say, well, I do yoga because I want to stretch. He said, well, if you want to stretch, do stretching exercises, don’t do yoga. Yoga puts you into positions that are specifically designed to allow you to link with the demonic realm. And that’s what they do in India with the Hindu religion, and that’s been westernized into the New Age movement and yoga coming into the churches. So you have all of these things, but going back to Halloween.
Well, what’s wrong with Halloween? You have churches that will celebrate Halloween. You’ll have Halloween parties. Some churches will pass out candy to kids on Halloween and encourage them to dress up and come to the church and give them candy. What’s behind all of that? Well, as part of the Druid belief system, they believed that these spiritual entities would come, these roaming spirits, these disembodied spirits.
They needed to be bought off, if you would, and so they’d prepare food and drink for them so that they would not cause problems for them. And so on, the 31st of October, which we celebrate as Halloween, they would put out drinks and food for these spirits. And what it would do is it would cause the spirit to go on to their next house, the next person, and play their tricks on them.
So they would give them a treat to prevent them from playing tricks on them. What do we tell kids to do on Halloween? Go to people’s houses, to total strangers that they don’t know, and say, trick or treat, I’m going to either play a trick on you if you don’t give me a treat, so give me a treat. Well, it’s Ritz having it all the way back in the Druids with buying off familiar spirits, supposedly, by giving them drink and food. And you can look at many of the other practices that surround Halloween.
Why is it such a gory holiday? There’s people who put out Halloween things to different things, and there’s a house over here on 13th Avenue, and they put out two skeletons that sit out on their front porch every year. Why do they put out skeletons? Well, because Halloween celebrates death.
It celebrates the fact that people have died, there’s a disembodied spirit, they don’t have anywhere to go, and this lord of death will allow them to go somewhere, but they have this last night of doing wicked and evil things. And other things that deal with Halloween, there was a head of the satanic church, he’s died and met his end, and knows now that Satan isn’t the one to be worshipped, but it’s Jesus Christ. But his name was Anton LaVey.
Anton LaVey made the statement, I am glad Christian parents let their children worship Satan one night of the year. I want you to stop and hear what he just said. Now I want you to also put in mind this book, the Bible, contains the truth and all we need for life, and morals, and knowing God, and for salvation.
Anton LaVey made the statement, I am glad Christian parents let their children worship Satan one night of the year. I want you to stop and hear what he just said. Now I want you to also put in mind this book, it contains the truth and all we need for life, and morals, and knowing God, and for salvation.
Do you realize today in America we are considered a quote Christian nation, yet how many hours a day does the average pastor have to instruct his people out of this book, to be able to teach them the great truths of the Bible. Basically you’re seeing less and less people going to midweek services, evident tonight. You’re seeing less and less people going to Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening services, and those of you who come to that service also know we have about the same amount of attendance in those.
And so basically people are going Sunday morning, and then when something comes up they’ll skip that too. So basically the average pastor has one hour per week to teach all the truth out of this book. And you have weeks in the year, and if everybody comes to every Sunday morning service, that’s hours of instruction out of the Word of God on the principles of godly living, the principles of salvation, the principles of how we are to live a moral and godly character, to teach us the principles of how we walk with the Lord, and to get to know the Lord of life.
I want you to look at the average Christian and what they do during the week. This was Christians and non-Christians, but the average Christian spends every day two to three hours in front of the television, if not more. We spend time on our computers, we spend time on our phones, and if you look at what the messages are that are being promoted in those arenas, it’s not biblical truth.
It’s the message of Satan in Babylon. I want you to turn with me now to Samuel. Samuel chapter 15 , verse 23 .
In Samuel chapter 15 , it’s speaking about the Lord’s opinion on what witchcraft is. He says in verse 23,:
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath rejected thee from being king. Samuel 15:23
Here he is speaking to Saul, Samuel is speaking to Saul. But I want you to hear that.
Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. If you’re harboring a rebellious spirit towards the things of God and you’re saying, I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to believe that, I’m not going to allow that, I want to do what I want to do, not what the Bible says. That’s the spirit of rebellion. And he’s saying it’s as witchcraft.
And not only, but stubbornness, and sometimes you feel like stubbornness isn’t that big a deal, but it is. Stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. And basically what you’re doing is you’re saying, I’m establishing something else as God instead of the Lord.
And when I do that, I’m committing witchcraft. At the heart of witchcraft is believing a different system and values than the Bible teaches. It’s believing a different means of approaching eternal life than what the Scripture says. And it becomes worshiping the Lord of death instead of the Lord of life. Jesus is the Lord of life. And he is the one we’re to worship. And when we choose to walk in rebellion to him or are stubborn towards the things he says, what we are really doing is setting up another as God. If you would turn with me also to Revelation chapter 21, and I want you to see what the Lord tells us, what does God offer us where Satan offers us death? In Revelation chapter 21, I mean, Revelation chapter 21, verse 1-4 , it says,
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I saw a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God. Revelation 21:1-4
These are the promises that we are given for eternity. That God will be with us, and he’s going to create a new heaven and a new earth, a new Jerusalem, he’s going to be with us eternally, he’s going to be there to show forth his love, his holiness, his purity, his righteousness, and we will be with him eternally. If you go down to verse number 8 of chapter 21, and I want you to see who’s not going to be there. It says that the ones who will be there will be the children of God, those who believe.
The ones who will not be there,
But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and the murderers and the whoremongers and the sorcerers and the idolaters and the liars shall have their part in the lake of fire which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death. Revelation 21:8
We just got done reading in Samuel that rebellion is witchcraft. Witchcraft involves sorcery, witchcraft involves all these things which are speaking here.
And it says that stubbornness is idolatry. These are serious things, and there’s two world spirits, and what spirit governs our life? Is it the Holy Spirit? Is it the leading of God in His Word? Or is it a different spirit? If you turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 10 verse 1 . We’ve been studying through the book of Jeremiah, and Jeremiah was dealing with the nation of Israel, which really was doing what we do every Halloween. They were embracing the false gods and their practices and rejecting believing in the true and the living God which had given them life.
Chapter 10 of Jeremiah verse 1 .
Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel. Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen, be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the heathen are dismayed at them. Jeremiah 10:1
In other words, the heathen fear and are governed by the signs of heaven. How many times have you seen people that go, Oh, my horoscope said this is going to happen to me today, I better not go out, I better just stay home because we’re going to have something horrible happen. Or they believe in other telltale signs and wonders that are not of God.
Learn not the way of the heathen,
and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven;
for the heathen are dismayed at them.
3 For the customs of the people are vain:
for one cutteth a tree out of the forest,
the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
4 They deck it with silver and with gold;
they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not:
they must needs be borne, because they cannot go.
Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil,
neither also is it in them to do good.
6 Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O Lord;
thou art great, and thy name is great in might. Jeremiah 10:2-6
We serve the great and awesome God, the creator of all things, and yet people are willing to give it up, and even Christians, and even Judah at the time of Jeremiah, to worship false gods. You know that in Mexico, right now, coming up, they’re going to have the great celebration of the dead.
And they’re going to have all kinds of masks, and they’re going to be carrying around idols, and they’re going to be worshiping the dead. This is the God of life, not of death. And God tells us that.
And Jeremiah is trying to tell Israel, Why are you doing these things? Why are you sacrificing your children to Moloch? Why are you setting up these false gods that are made out of wood and cloth, and then you bow down and worship them? Why do you think it’s so great to dress up and look like you’re a skeleton, or dress up and then go trick-or-treating, which was a Druid custom, to feign off the evil spirits? Why do we do these things? If you try with me to do Deuteronomy 18, verse , 10-11. I want you to see what the Lord thinks of all of this. Deuteronomy 18, verse 10-11 . And in Deuteronomy, God is again speaking to Israel, but he’s speaking to us.
10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, 11 or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Deuteronomy 18:10-11
Why were the Canaanites driven out of the land? Why did God tell them to drive the Canaanites out, and the Israelites to take over the land? Because this was their culture. This was their belief system. This was their worship system.
It was all an abomination to the Lord. Now I want you to understand, should a Christian be against abortion? The answer is absolutely yes. Why? Because abortion is a means of expressing selfishness and a lack of trust in God.
You don’t want to be pregnant at that time for a reason. Maybe you wanted to go to college. Maybe you just got married and wanted to travel with your new husband.
Maybe you had other plans, and so would just sacrifice the child. Is there any difference between modern-day abortion in America and the sacrificing of the children to the gods in the Old Testament? I don’t believe there is. And people say, well, what about the exceptions of incest and rape? Again, I’ve listened to the testimony of people who were children of rape and are so thankful their mom didn’t abort them.
And listen to their mom’s testimony about how that child was a real blessing. It was a horrible experience to go through, but they trusted the Lord with the child. What’s our philosophy and what motivates it? The Lord of death or the Lord of life? The Bible or Babylon? It’s interesting, if you turn with me to 1 Corinthians 10 .
Let’s see what the New Testament says to say about this. Corinthians .
Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 1 1 Corinthians 10:1
Now, Paul’s speaking about the Jews that came out of Egypt. They were delivered from out of the Egyptian culture.
And we’re going to look at those cultures in just a minute. They were delivered from the Egyptian culture and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea and did all eat the same spiritual meat. So he says, all these people that came out of Egypt had the same experience.
2 and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3 and did all eat the same spiritual meat; 4 and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
5 But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
6 Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
7 Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
8 Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
9 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.
10 Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.
1 Corinthians 10:2-10
Remember God judged the majority of the people, judged a whole generation in the wilderness for their lack of faith.
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; 14 they, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. 15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. 16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in. 17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. 18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. 20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. 21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: 22 all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. 23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days. Genesis 7:11-24
4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. Genesis 8:4
19 every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark. Genesis 8:19
Every nation, every people of the world has a remembrance of some type of this great catastrophe. Prior to the nation of Israel being delivered out of Egypt, the Passover became the first month of the year. And that became the new year of the Passover.
Prior to that, the new year began according to the Hebrew temple. Meaning Noah was locked up in the ark, and then a year later was let out. That month was the new year.
Now, I want you to understand this perspective. Lord of death, Lord of life. All things died.
How many things died in the flood? Everything except what was in the ark. The people have a remembrance of that in their culture. That there was this massive death, that everything died.
Who would have known that? Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives. They would have passed it on to their children and their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren about the event that occurred where men sinned. Now, why did God do this judgment? He did this judgment because of the evil spirits that men were getting involved with to the point that it was disgusting. It was disgusting. It says that the angels came and cohabited with women, and the women bore men of great renown. Things that were totally out of what God had ordered man to do.
Demonic spirits, wicked spirits. And they were the ones that men worshipped. You have this day of death, and that date would be the end of October, first of November when the flood occurred.
And it would be the first part of November when they got out of the boat a year later. And if you look at the dates and look at everything else, what is Halloween based on? It’s based on the remembrance of the fact that men rebelled against God and they all died. And they worshipped it. You don’t worship the God of life, you worship the God of death. And instead of worshipping the God of life, which delivered Moses, I mean, delivered Noah and his family by the ark, we worship the God of death and Halloween. In Genesis chapter 11, it talks about how the people at the Tower of Babel came in and were all one belief system.
And once again, they began to fall back into the same belief system that was there prior to the flood. At the heart of it was Nimrod who wanted to be worshipped as God and who really was manifesting himself and believing the lie that had been given to Adam and saying the people should worship him. And God judged them and scattered them over the face of the earth because they would not leave and do what he said, he preferred to multiply and inhabit the earth. They were all in the land of Babylon, in Babel.
The roots of Halloween. The roots of Halloween really are worshipping death and it wants to go back, it brings people back to when man was united with demonic spirits prior to the flood and that’s why you see so many wicked and evil things being manifested during Halloween and it worships the God of death.
We are to worship the God of life. Jesus Christ is a way, the truth, and the life. And we are to worship him.
He is the giver of life. He is the one that is the redeemer. He is the one that is the savior.
He is the one that gives us an opportunity to know the truth from error, to walk in his righteousness, his holiness, and his truth. The question is, what do you do with Halloween? What do you do with yoga? What do you do with many things that are creeping into the church that are real wicked? You know, the spirit of Babylon, the spirit of Satan, not the spirit of Christ.
Let’s just close in prayer. Father, I pray that you’d help us to understand these things. Help us to apply these things to our life. Lord, help us to warn people not to let their children be involved in Halloween. It’s not just dressing up kids in cute costumes and begging for candy. But it’s going back much further to worship demonic spirits that were in total rebellion against the order that God had established and desired to destroy man. And Lord, that you brought judgment because of that. And Lord, help us to understand that we’re not to worship death, but to worship life. And to worship you. This we ask in Jesus’ name.
Amen.