This year, I thought, perhaps I shall just let the occult parties of Halloween slide by with nary a glance. But lo and behold, I begin to be inundated with requests for some sort of reason about the whole holiday, so I shall try to set forth why I believe that celebrating Halloween is a really good example of a bad idea.
It does not seem to be much up for question where Halloween originated. It was apparently a high day on Nov. 1 each year in the occult historical order of the Druids. This made the evening before hallowed, or Hallowed even, shortened to Halloween. The Druids were occultists across what is now the UK and believed on this night, they could access the realm of the dead, and the realm of the dead contacted them. Folks dressed up as scary monsters, hoping to frighten away the evil spirits. Lanterns were lit in scary pumpkin faces cut out to frighten spirits. Sacrifices were made to pacify the spirits, culminating in sacrificing the eldest child. Little gifts or meals were left at the door for the spirits... a shadow of today's trick-or Treat hunt.
Halloween can be traced directly back to Samhain, the ancient Celtic harvest festival honoring the Lord of the Dead. (Thompson, Sue Ellen. Holiday Symbols and Customs, p. 251)
Firstborn sacrifices are mentioned in a poem in the Dindshenchas, which records that children were sacrificed each Samhain... (Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, p. 17) Halloween. That was the eve of Samhain... firstborn children were sacrificed... Samhain eve was a night of dread and danger. (National Geographic. May 1977, pp. 625-626)
Now, it's not like Oct 31 or Nov 1, can be avoided. The days will come and go as usual unless the Lord returns before that. The days, and the dates, are most certainly not evil in and of themselves. There are two things, however, that need to be recognized and dealt with on those days in a realistic fashion; one, the celebration of them; and two, the spirit activity associated with both the days and the celebrations.
Celebrating devils is like a self-fulfilling prophecy: celebrate them, and they show up. After about 4000 years of celebrating the demonic world on a given date, there is likely to be accelerated spiritistic activity. When these celebrations occur, the folks participating in them are seen, by the spirit world, as liking or "voting for" the devils being celebrated. This is an invitation to the spirits of darkness to affect and infect those who join in these celebrations.
This kind of spirit-world fascination and effect has been around for a long, long time. The American Indians were deep into it. Israel dealt with it in their time, and God had a few things to say about the feasts, celebrations, and offering of children to those idols. The Israelites also were continually trying to 'sanctify' the idols, rituals, high places, and customs of the heathen by bringing mention of the Lord into it. This resulted in some pretty awful demonstrations of judgment on them, meted out by God. (for example, see 2 Kings 21:11-17)
In today's world, Halloween is a celebration of devils. Every element of the way it is celebrated today is a direct reflection of the satanic celebrations of the past: the costumes, the frightening, ghost and ghoul-centered parties, the trick-or-treat, the carved pumpkins, all of it. People today may not recognize it as such, but the demons involved know exactly what it is about, and they take an individual's participation as consent. If you do not consent to this sort of demonic activity, why be a part of the celebration?
What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? Do you not understand that the things the lost culture sacrifices to idols, they sacrifice to devils? If any man defiles the temple of God, he shall God destroy. I really don't want you to have fellowship with devils. What communion has light with darkness? What harmony can be found between Christ and Satan? For this reason, come out from among them, and do not touch demonic things, and God will be a Father to you.
Some are clamoring to 'Christianize' Halloween, bringing the parties into churches, etc. It seems to me the Bible is clear enough about that sort of thing. There really should not even be a discussion about it. This amounts to sacrificing our children on the altar of Halloween and sacrificing Christianity on the altar of the Druids. I do not expect this to come out well.
I can tell you stories all night long about folks we have worked with who began, or severely accelerated, a downward spiral in their life by Halloween parties and attendance. Fear-gripped, destroying their health, mental problems, and difficulties of all sorts, many of which were alleviated immediately when repentance took place in their lives. And yes, I am speaking about Christians.
Today's cocky attitude about wallowing in sin, and playing with the demonic, believing that "it can't affect me because I am a Christian" is not Christ-like, nor is it of God in any way. People's desires and appetites are being warped and exacerbated, sometimes to extremes, and we sit idly by, watching the next horror film or seance. Somehow, we must awaken as the church in Acts 19 did and burn our items related to the idol worship around us and our books where curious arts are portrayed. I suppose that may spark an uproar, with folks shouting for 2 hours, "Great is Halloween of the Americans," in a fervor of vicious emotion. But perhaps then, the Word of God will grow mightily and prevail. -Steve Stutzman