What do you guys think Halloween is about?
Today, Halloween is often a troublesome time for communities, when people go out committing crime and vandalism, dressed up as the dead and knocking on your door threatening “Trick or Treat” unless you give them what they want – The police record an increase in crimes during Halloween, and they think it is fun. I don’t think Jesus would approve, do you? Jesus said “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them.” So unless you actually want people committing crimes against you, making threats toward you unless you give them something then – you shouldn’t do it to them. Of course not everyone actually is serious about committing vandalism if you do not give them something – but Halloween is an corrupted celebration.
Halloween is a Holy day of the dead, but it has changed, its origin has been forgotten and corrupted. A lot of sinful things have been introduced into Halloween and it is now a very Pagan celebration. So Christians need to be very weary about how much we get involved. But its roots are actually Biblical.
All over the world around the month of October people celebrate a “Day of the Dead”. Yet most of these countries did not know of each other, so did not learn this tradition from each other, and that leaves us to wonder – how is it they have nearly identical traditions? And I will give an answer to that shortly.
Halloween is not a Christian celebration but it can be considered a Biblical day for Bible believing Christians (which we are) but, pagan religions are religions that do not believe in the one true God, they do things that is forbidden by our God. Such as witchcraft, which has its roots in lies and deceit from satan. So anyone practicing such things is messing with the power of satan, and becomes guilty of committing an abomination. So don’t do it.
God tells us that witchcraft is an abomination. In Revelation 22:15 God tells us that anyone involved in paganism will not inherit eternal life… (and I think you all want eternal life don’t you?) but those who commit an abomination and do not repent of it, they are cast out. God said “But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.”
Hallowed means “Holy; Consecrated.” The name has connections with the Catholic Church whom created All Saints and All Souls Day to celebrate martyrs and loved ones that had departed. Halloween is supposed to be a Holy day. But there is much evidence that Halloween has its roots going right back to Noah’s Flood and was considered a Holy day involving animal sacrifice, but the roots can go even deeper reaching as far as mans original sin.
It is connected to Adam and Eve being deceived by satan in the Garden of Eden – and now satan is corrupting this Holy day and still using his deceit to lead mankind further astray. Satan is such a great deceiver, that those who are pagan actually believe it is Christians that tried to steal their celebration, when the Holy day was actually created by our God way before Jesus was even born and then corrupted by paganism, and paganism is a tool of satan.
Adam disobeyed a direct commandment of God by eating the forbidden fruit, and death entered the world. Death is the consequence of disobedience and so God had to remove His presence from Adam and Eve exposing their nakedness. Life is being in God’s presence, so becoming separated from God brought upon us death. This is very serious, yet God showed mercy on mankind and hid their nakedness by using animal skins which sadly involved the sacrifice of animals – but also after Noah’s flood, Noah built an altar and made animal sacrifice to our God. This sacrifice made atonement for sin and points to God whom kept His promise to send us a saviour – Jesus who was yet to come and die on the cross, taking our sins onto Himself. Noah’s sacrifice was immediately after the great flood when all of mankind except Noah’s family had perished. It can be linked with the Holy day now called Halloween.
Genesis 8:20-21 “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.”
God continued talking, telling Noah’s family to be fruitful and multiply, to replenish the earth. After these sacrifices, Noah’s sons had children of their own, giving Noah 16 grandchildren. These grandchildren also had children and then eventually this takes us to the story of the Tower of Babel.
So we need to ask ourselves – How did the Holy day of the dead including the sacrifice get all over the world?
Well even after Noah’s family had grown in number – for over 100 years mankind still lived together. They spoke the same language and knew of all the stories and traditions and Holy days passed down by Noah whom was also still alive! … They understood about sin and the consequences and the need for sacrifices as a covering for their sins.
But they still sinned anyway – by building the Tower of Babel.
Genesis 11:1-9 Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
God commanded us to populate all the earth but instead after the flood, we were avoiding being scattered and Nimrod was a world leader. As we can see, once again men were disobedient towards God, and this was only a few short years after the flood, less than a few hundred. Mankind planned to elevate themselves, we are full of pride and attempted to reach Heaven by building a tower. My opinion is that all men having the same language living within the same vicinity was not a good situation. We were all working together meaning all of mankind was viewed as one nation, with one identity in God’s eyes. This meant that if God should pour out His wrath upon mankind again, it could be total extinction because all of mankind was viewed as one person.
So by God confounding our tongues and forcing us to scatter and so also fulfilling God’s command meant many new nations were born. Mankind now had many identities and this was an amazing act of mercy on God’s part, because now if God was forced to pour out His wrath to deal with sin, God knew He can do so by judging individual nations rather than mankind as a whole. God’s command to scatter was for our own benefit. Our God is Holy and sin must be punished, yet in His Wisdom God engineers a situation that will contain His wrath – God is Good to us yet we are blind to see it and resist!
And so, mankind was scattered as it is today, throughout the earth with different languages. And mankind took with them the knowledge of the great flood, how most of the world died, the Holy day remembering the dead that is today called Halloween, they took the knowledge of animal sacrifice needed to cover their sins. All this knowledge they took with them when God gave birth to these new nations thousands of years ago.
But interestingly though, Halloween also has connections with Easter!
Because Halloween was born from a Holy day that originally involved sacrifice to cover our sins and to honour the many dead. But Jesus is the ultimate and final sacrifice that put an end to sacrifices, our God defeated death and paid for all of our sins by taking them upon himself in the man of Jesus!
1 Corinthians 11:24-25 And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
So we are told to remember Jesus Christs sacrifice and remember His death. But He rose to life again as will all the dead whom died in the name of Jesus.
As will hopefully all of us here today – if we believe in Him.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We should not treat death as something to celebrate, it is not something to turn into entertainment for us, but death is a curse that resulted from sin – and it affects all of us. But Life, Life is something to be celebrated – Salvation is something to be celebrated, the fact Jesus is our God and He shall also raise us up from the dead, if we believe in Him. The fact Jesus took our punishment and purchased us by His blood, to give us eternal life.
Psalm 24:1
The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness,
The world and those who dwell therein.
So Halloween cannot be claimed by pagans, it does not belong to satan, it belongs to God, but satan corrupted it.
As Christians belonging to God, we remember Jesus Christ at Easter, and at Christmas – We also should do our best to remember our God and celebrate Him at Halloween, to not allow all the fancy dress and corruption deceive us, and if possible, may we use Halloween to speak to others about our Faith.
Remember – Halloween is not a Christian celebration but it is a historical Biblical day for Bible believing Christians, pointing to Jesus and Noah’s flood – and we can respect this Holy day if we wish – but we must be very careful to not get tangled in pagan things that have corrupted this Holy day, to not be deceived by satan, and that death is a serious thing, serious enough that Jesus died on the cross to save all of us – Jesus has paid the price so we can live…
30th October 2021 – Leon Davey
(All scripture is taken from the NKJV)